Fred Trump

Frederick Christ Trump (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American real estate developer and businessman. He was the father of Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, along with four other children.

Born in the Bronx in New York City to German immigrant parents, Trump began working in home construction and sales in the 1920s before heading the real-estate business started by his parents (later known as the Trump Organization). His company rose to success, building and managing single-family houses in Queens, apartments for war workers on the East Coast during World War II, and more than 27,000 apartments in New York overall. Trump was investigated for profiteering by a U.S. Senate committee in 1954 and again by New York State in 1966. Donald Trump became the president of his father's real-estate business in 1971. Two years later, they were sued by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division for racial discrimination against black people.

According to The New York Times, Fred and his wife, Mary, provided over $1 billion (in 2018 dollar value) to their children, avoiding over $500 million in gift taxes. In 1992, Fred and Donald set up a subsidiary which was used to funnel Fred's fortune to his progeny. Shortly before his death, Fred transferred the ownership of most of his buildings to his surviving children, who several years later sold them for over 16 times their previously declared worth.

Trump was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in 1927, but there is no conclusive evidence that he supported the organization. From World War II onward, to avoid associations with Nazism, Trump denied his German ancestry and also supported Jewish causes.

Trump's father, the German-born Frederick Trump (originally Friedrich), amassed considerable wealth during the Klondike Gold Rush by running a restaurant and brothel for miners. Friedrich returned to Kallstadt in 1901, and, by the next year, met and married Elizabeth Christ. They moved to New York City, where their first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1904. Later that year, the family returned to Kallstadt. Fred was conceived in Bavaria, where his parents wished to re-establish residency, but Friedrich was banished for dodging the draft. The family returned to New York on July 1, 1905, and moved to the Bronx, where Frederick Christ Trump was born on October 11, 1905. Fred's younger brother, John G. Trump, was born in 1907. All three children were raised speaking German at home. In September 1908, the family moved to Woodhaven, Queens.

Many details of Trump's childhood come from autobiographical accounts and emphasize independence, learning and especially hard work – to the point of being somewhat fictionalized. At the age of 10, Trump worked as a delivery boy for a butcher. About two years later, on Memorial Day, his father died in the 1918 flu pandemic, quite suddenly according to Fred. From 1918 to 1923, Fred attended Richmond Hill High School in Queens, while working as a caddy, curb whitewasher, delivery boy, and newspaper hawker. Meanwhile, his mother continued the real-estate business Friedrich had begun. Interested in becoming a builder, Fred put up a garage for a neighbor and took night classes in carpentry and reading blueprints; he reputedly studied plumbing, masonry, and electrical wiring via correspondence courses, although other biographical sources limit his construction education to the period after high school when he was also working in the field.

After graduating in January 1923, Trump obtained full-time work pulling lumber to construction sites. He studied carpentry and became a carpenter's assistant. Trump's mother held the business in her name until he reached 21, the age of majority. The company name "E. Trump & Son" appeared in advertising by 1924, by which year Trump ostensibly used an $800 loan from his mother to complete and sell his first house. Public records, however, do not support him building until 1927, the year the company was incorporated (and following Trump's 21st birthday). Trump purportedly built 19 more homes by 1926 in Hollis, Queens, selling some before they were finished to finance others. Investigative journalist Wayne Barrett posits that Trump exaggerated the length of his career in 1934 while arguing to a federal court why he should deserve to obtain a dissolved company's mortgage servicer and respective assets.

In 1927, Trump was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan demonstration, although there is no conclusive evidence that he supported the organization.

In 1933, Trump built one of New York City's first modern supermarkets, called Trump Market, in Woodhaven, Queens. It was modeled on Long Island's King Kullen, a self-service supermarket chain. Trump's store advertised "Serve Yourself and Save!" and quickly became popular. After six months, Trump sold it to King Kullen.

In early 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and other federal leaders began denouncing real-estate profiteers. That June, The New York Times included Trump on a list of 35 city builders accused of profiteering from government contracts. He and others were investigated by a U.S. Senate banking committee for windfall gains. Trump and his partner William Tomasello were cited as examples of how profits were made by builders using the FHA. The two paid $34,200 for a piece of land which they rented to their corporation for $76,960 annually in a 99-year lease, so that if the apartment they built on it ever defaulted, the FHA would owe them $1.924 million. Trump and Tomasello evidently obtained loans for $3.5 million more than Beach Haven Apartments had cost. Trump argued that because he had not withdrawn the money, he had not literally pocketed the profits. He further argued that due to rising costs, he would have had to invest more than the 10% of the mortgage loan not provided by the FHA, and therefore suffer a loss if he built under those conditions.

In 1961, Trump donated $2,500 to the re-election campaign of New York mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., helping him gain favor for the construction of Trump Village, a large apartment complex in Coney Island. The project was constructed in 1963–64 for $70 million. It was one of Trump's biggest and last major projects, and the only one to bear his name. He built more than 27,000 low-income apartments and row houses in the New York area altogether, including Brooklyn (in Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay, Flatbush, and Brighton Beach) and Queens (in Flushing and Jamaica Estates).

In 1966, Trump was again investigated for windfall profiteering, this time by New York State investigators. After Trump overestimated building costs sponsored by a state program, he profited $598,000 on equipment rentals in the construction of Trump Village, which was then spent on other projects. Under testimony on January 27, 1966, Trump said that he had personally done nothing wrong and praised the success of his building project. The commission called Trump "a pretty shrewd character" with a "talent for getting every ounce of profit out of his housing project", but no indictments were made. It was suggested instead that the state's housing program was in need of tighter administration protocols and accountability. A deputy attorney general corresponded with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding any reports it had about Trump before he was set to be deposed on March 31, 1966.

On July 1, 1965, Trump purchased Coney Island's recently closed Steeplechase Park for $2.3 million, intending to build luxury apartments. The next year, he announced plans for a 160-foot-high (49-meter) enclosed dome with recreational facilities and a convention center. At a highly publicized ceremony in September 1966, Trump demolished the park's Pavilion of Fun, a large glass-enclosed amusement center. He reportedly sold bricks to ceremony guests to smash the remaining glass panels, which included an iconic representation of the park's mascot, the "Funny Face". The next month, New York City announced plans to acquire the former park grounds for recreational use. Trump filed a series of court cases related to the proposed rezoning, ultimately winning $1.3 million. After the site sat vacant for several years, Trump started subleasing it to a manager of fairground amusement park rides. Over another decade, the city eventually succeeded in reclaiming the property.

In July 2016, the Coney Island History Project held a special exhibit for the "50th Anniversary of Fred Trump's Demolition of Steeplechase Pavilion".

In 1976, Trump set up trust funds of $1 million ($5.3 million in 2023) for each of his five children and three grandchildren, which paid out yearly dividends. Trump appeared on the initial Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1982 with an estimated $200 million fortune split with his son Donald. That same year, Fred sold two Norfolk towers and some Hampton Roads military housing, the latter for $8–9 million, with perhaps $6.6 million pledged in promissory notes (which were apparently outstanding as of 2019). In 1998, a year before Fred's death, while he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and his son Robert had power of attorney, the notes were transferred to limited liability companies connected to Trump Organization subsidiaries.

In December 1990, Donald Trump sought to amend his father's will, which according to Fred's daughter Maryanne Trump Barry, "was basically taking the whole estate and giving it to Donald", allowing him to "sell, do anything he wants ... with the properties". The Washington Post wrote that this "was designed to protect Donald Trump's inheritance from efforts to seize it by creditors and Ivana", whom he divorced that month. Fred rejected the proposal, and in 1991, composed his own final will, which made his children Donald, Maryanne, and Robert Trump co-executors of his estate. Trump's lawyer noted that Fred Jr.'s children, Fred III and Mary L. Trump, would be treated unequally because they would not receive their deceased father's share: "Given the size of your estate, this is tantamount to disinheriting them. You may wish to increase their participation in your estate to avoid ill will in the future." In October 1991, Trump was diagnosed with "mild senile dementia", with his physician citing symptoms of "obvious memory decline in recent years" and "significant memory impairment". A few months later, another physician reported that Trump "did not know his birth date [or] age", amongst other difficulties. Mary L. Trump recounted that as her grandfather's dementia progressed, he failed to recognize people he had known for decades, including her and Donald. According to Fred III, his grandfather needed to be reminded why he was at Donald's 1993 wedding (to Marla Maples) despite being designated the best man. Donald claimed that he first noticed his father exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer's in the mid-1990s.

In 1993, the anticipated shares of Trump's estate amounted to $35 million for each surviving child. Most of his buildings were transferred to two grantor-retained annuity trusts under his and his wife's names, which were used to give about two-thirds of the assets to their four surviving children, who bought the remaining third via annuity payments between 1995 and November 1997. The collective assets had a declared value of only $41.4 million, but in 2004 were sold for over 16 times this value, avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars in gift taxes.

Trump finally fell ill with pneumonia and was admitted to Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJMC) for a few weeks, where he died at age 93 on June 25, 1999. A wake was held at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel ahead of his funeral at the Marble Collegiate Church, which was attended by over 600 people. His body was buried in a family plot at the Lutheran-Christian All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. Upon his death, Trump's estate was estimated by his family at $250 million to $300 million, though he had only $1.9 million in cash. His will divided over $20 million after taxes among his surviving children and grandchildren. His widow, Mary, died on August 7, 2000, at age 88, also at LIJMC. Her and Fred's combined estate was then valued at $51.8 million.

Following Trump's death, Fred Jr.'s children contested their grandfather's will, citing his dementia and claiming that the will was "procured by fraud and undue influence" by Donald, Maryanne, and Robert Trump. These three had claimed in their legal depositions that Fred Trump was "sharp as a tack" until just before his death, but otherwise stated that they were aware of his cognitive decline. According to Mary L. Trump, Donald denigrated his father after Fred began demonstrating Alzheimer's symptoms.

In May 1927, over 1,000 robed members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and 400 non-robed KKK supporters infiltrated a Memorial Day parade in Queens, prompting stern police intervention. Eight men were arrested, including the 21-year old Trump, whose charge of "refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so" was dismissed. Another man, arrested on the same charge, was released on the basis of having been a bystander (whose foot was injured by a police car). Some newspaper articles on the incident list Trump's address (in Jamaica, Queens), which he is recorded as living at on various documents from 1928 to 1940. Despite this arrest, there is no incontrovertible evidence that Trump was a supporter of the KKK.

Trump met his future wife, Mary Anne MacLeod, an immigrant from Tong, Lewis, Scotland, at a dance party in the early to mid-1930s. Trump told his mother the same evening that he had met his future wife. Trump, a Lutheran, married Mary, a Presbyterian, on January 11, 1936, at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church with George Arthur Buttrick officiating. A wedding reception was held at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, and they had a single-night honeymoon in Atlantic City. The couple settled in Jamaica, Queens, and had five children: Maryanne Trump Barry (1937–2023), Fred Trump Jr. (1938–1981; an airline pilot with Trans World Airlines), Elizabeth Trump Grau (born 1942; a retired executive of Chase Manhattan Bank), Donald Trump (born 1946), and Robert Trump (1948–2020; a top executive of his father's property management company until his retirement).

Folk singer Woody Guthrie was a tenant of Beach Haven Apartments from 1950 to 1951. In his unrecorded song "Old Man Trump", he complains about the rent and accused Trump of stirring up racial hate "in the bloodpot of human hearts". Similarly, in an unreleased version of "Ain't Got No Home", Guthrie states:

Trump was indirectly claimed as a relative of Republican politician Fred J. Trump, a candidate in the 1956 Arizona gubernatorial election and correspondent of Richard Nixon during his 1960 presidential campaign against John F. Kennedy.

Jerome Tuccille's 1985 biography of Donald Trump repeats Fred's fabrication that he was born in New Jersey and erroneously states that his middle name was Charles (not Christ). Donald's The Art of the Deal (1987) also claims that Fred was born in New Jersey as the son of an immigrant from Sweden (not Germany). The New York Post repeated the latter claim in its eulogy for Fred. As U.S. president, Donald incorrectly stated several times that his father was born in Germany. According to a 2021 book about the last year of Donald's first presidency, he once spoke disparagingly of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, stating, "I know the fucking krauts", and pointing to his father's portrait, continued, "I was raised by the biggest kraut of them all." During his second presidency, Donald contended that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz "knows all about my father".

In his 1993 biography of Donald Trump, Harry Hurt III asserts that Fred was a philanderer, with his alleged affairs in Florida leading him to be known as the "King of Miami Beach". In 1989 (while Donald was married to Ivana but tabloids had begun reporting about his affair with future wife Marla Maples), Fred reputedly lectured Donald that he could "have a thousand mistresses" but not to get caught in a single specific extramarital affair. According to Hurt, after Donald decided to accompany Ivana to her father's funeral in Czechoslovakia (amid their pending divorce), Fred told a longtime secretary and personal confidant, "I hope their plane crashes. Then all my problems will be solved."

During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, his father's 1927 arrest at a KKK march resurfaced. In mid-February 2017, Israeli newspaper Haaretz asserted that both Donald Trump (who had called Fred his only 'hero') and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had learned racism from their fathers, Trump against brown people and Netanyahu against Arabs. Three days later, the FBI declassified 389 pages from its early 1970s investigation of alleged racial discrimination by the Trump Organization. In his 2018 psychological profile of Donald, Justin A. Frank asserted that Fred was antisemitic. In 2020, Mary L. Trump supported this claim and said Fred could have been sympathetic to the KKK.