Konstantinos Sismanoglou (May 23, 1857 – June 27, 1951)

Konstantinos Sismanoglou (May 23, 1857 – June 27, 1951)

Born in Chalkidona, on the Asian side of Constantinople, he was the son of the prominent businessman, banker and Greek national benefactor Ioannis Sismanoglou, who spent much of his wealth donating it to many Greek causes all over modern day Greece, Asia Minor and Anatolia.

After the death of Ioannis Sisamnoglou, his fortune passed on to his sons Konstantinos and Anastasios, who managed to greatly grow this fortune with their business activities and greatly building on their father’s legacy.

After the break out of the Greco-Turkish War (1897), they left Constantinople and went to Paris where they expanded their financial service operations. While in France, they also financially assisted the many Greeks who were living there up until the outbreak of WW1, when they returned to Greece.

Konstantinos along with his brother, spent vast amounts of their wealth on various Greek education and medical facilities from Constantinople to as far as Ankyra and from Komotini to Athens.

During the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1919-22), they assisted their Asia Minor compatriots who had escaped the Greek Genocide (1914-1923), as they flooded into Greece, donating their own land and properties to house them.

In the 1930’s, Greece was hit with thousands of deaths from tuberculosis. Konstantinos’s brother Anastasios would eventually die from the disease and the Sismanoglou’s once again, used their wealth to build a modern sanatorium in Athens to combat the disease.

This facility is one of the lasting legacies of the Sismanoglou family, as today, it is one of the largest public hospitals in Greece, the Sismanogleio Hospital in Athens, built thanks to them.

Konstantinos also donated further funds to the building of another hospital this time in Komotini.