Bank and trading company Splitgerber & Daum
The trading house Splitgerber & Daum was the largest and most versatile business enterprise in Prussia in its time. This included the trading house with the bank that emerged from it, five privileged sugar factories, the storage and shipping business including inland vessels and its own ocean-going fleet. In addition, royal manufactories were operated on a lease basis, the most important of which was the rifle factory in Potsdam-Spandau .
founding
The trading house was originally owned by Gottfried Adolph Daum under the company Daum & Comp. To cover military needs . Founded in 1712. His silent partner was David Splitgerber . After expansion of the business to the civil sector and an increase in banking and monetary transactions, the name was changed to Splitgerber & Daum . The first business quarter was a furnished two-room apartment in the house of the widow Reichenow Gertraudten at the corner of Roßstrasse at the Petrikirche in Berlin. Splitgerber came from Pomerania and Daum from Saxony. Since they did not have their own funds, they were dependent on donors, who mainly came from Daum circles.
history
The success of Splitgerber & Daum is closely linked to the rise of Prussia to become a major European power. The measures initiated by the Great Elector after the Thirty Years' War in the settlement policy and state promotion of trade and industry were continued by the successors of Frederick William I , the Soldier King and Frederick the Great in a single-minded military- mercantilist economic policy. Splitgerber & Daum took part in this development. The manufacturing system was a central component in terms of the desired self-sufficiency . The willingness of the entrepreneurs to also take over companies that were less profitable (metal factories) earned them the favor of the two rulers and promoted development in almost all of their businesses.
Company history
After starting out as suppliers of artillery ammunition for various German and European courts, the two immigrant young entrepreneurs were able to quickly broaden their business base and establish themselves in the Prussian capital. Gottfried Daum, with his military background, suggested that the soldier king set up a rifle factory, which the trading company could then lease for 130 years. In addition to this, cannon balls were poured into Zehdenick . The lease there also included the mining rights for the raw material lawn iron stone .
At the urging of the court, Splitgerber & Daum were also involved in various European and overseas trading companies. The Russian trading company supplied the tsar's army with uniform cloths from the production of the royal warehouse , which meant that British competition was eliminated for a few years. The East Asian trading company , which did business with China, was also profitable . The Prussian-Bengali Company, however, brought great losses . The lack of a Prussian fleet that could have provided escort and the boycott by the established sea trading power of England were decisive disadvantages here. Finally, Prussian overseas trade came to a standstill when the French occupied the home port of Emden at the beginning of the Seven Years' War .
The sugar factories in Berlin, Minden and Bromberg, which were endowed with royal privilege and had an almost nationwide monopoly, were among the lucrative self-foundations of the trading house.
After the death of Frederick II and the gradual departure from the mercantilist economic system (abolition of protective tariffs, loss of privileges and monopolies, withdrawal of the state from the economy), the trading house increasingly focused on pure banking, which David Schickler called from 1795 onwards Third generation under the name Gebrüder Schickler . The bank, which had been a court bank for decades, rose to become one of the leading private banks. As part of the Prussian consortium , the bank was involved in the placement of almost all Prussian and Reich German bonds. The economy received significant impetus from financing in the context of the incipient industrialization and railway construction.
Generation succession
After the death of the two founders Gottfried Adolph Daum and David Splitgerber , Splitgerber's sons-in-law - above all Johann Jacob Schickler - took over the management of the trading company, which became the property of the heirs and communities of heirs. The result was the multiple change of name to Splitgerber & Daumsche Erben , Splitgerbers seel. Heirs , the Schickler brothers . After the fourth generation took over the ownership rights, the influence of the German line of the Schicklers ended. The banking and trading house came through internal compensation in full to the French line, which had been founded by Johann Ernst Schickler . Since then, the bank has been managed by authorized representatives and authorized signatories. The owner families exercised supervisory board functions. In 1910 the merger to form the Delbrück, Schickler & Co.
To the place of business
The office building on Gertraudenstrasse was rebuilt in 1735. It remained the headquarters until 1910. Then it was acquired by Deutsche Girozentrale , which had two extensions made. After the end of World War II , the property fell under expropriation and in 1949 it became public property . The damage to the building from the war in Berlin was so great that it was removed from 1961–1969. Archaeologists suspect remains of the foundation walls and the cellar under the current carriageway of Gertraudenstraße .
literature
- Peter Bahl : The court of the great elector. Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-08300-3 .
- Johann David Erdmann Preuss : Frederick the Great. Volume 1, Nauck, Berlin 1832.
- Wolfgang Schneider : Berlin, a cultural history in pictures and documents. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig / Weimar 1980, ISBN 3-7833-8004-9 .
- Friedrich Lenz , Otto Unholtz: The history of the banking house Gebrüder Schickler. Festschrift for the 200th anniversary, Reimer, Berlin 1912 digitized by the University of Toronto .
- Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt: Berlin bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, NY 2002, ISBN 3-11-016560-0 .
- Wilhelm Treue : Economic and technical history of Prussia. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, NY 1984, ISBN 3-11-009598-X .
- Ingrid Mittenzwei, Erika Herzfeld: Brandenburg-Prussia 1648-1789. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-373-00004-1
- Hugo Rachel, Johannes Papritz, Paul Wallisch: Berlin wholesalers and capitalists . Volume 2: The time of mercantilism 1648-1806 . Gsellius, Berlin 1938.
- Rolf Straubel: merchants and manufacturing entrepreneurs. Steiner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-515-06714-0 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Treue: Economic and technical history of Prussia. de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 1984, p. 44.
- ↑ House numbers were only introduced in Berlin in 1799.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: The history of the bank Brothers Schickler. Pp. 12, 16, 18, 41.
- ↑ on Baron von Schmettau see: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1897, Volume 15, p. 552.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: The history of the bank Brothers Schickler. Verlag Reimer, Berlin 1912, pp. 82 f., 90, 132, 136, 171, 350.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: The history of the bank Brothers Schickler. P. 350.
- ^ Wilhelm Treue: Economic and technical history of Prussia. Pp. 43, 44.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: The history of the bank Brothers Schickler. P. 75.
- ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna 1895, Volume 8, p. 301.
- ↑ Historical buildings - almost all large town houses and aristocratic palaces have been destroyed or torn down. But there are ideas to make their traces in old locations visible. Six examples from the old center. Picture-text article in Berliner Zeitung , based on elaborations by Benedikt Goebel (stadtforschung.berlin) and Lutz Mauersberger (berlin-mitte-archiv.com) October 9, 2017, p. 16.