Abraham Schaaffhausen

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Abraham Schaaffhausen

Johann Abraham Anton Schaaffhausen (born June 22, 1756 in Cologne , † January 13, 1824 in Schlebusch ) was a German banker .

family

His grandfather Andreas Schaaffhausen (* 1654, † February 7, 1740) had moved to Cologne and in 1682 received "great citizenship". He exercised the office of "cloth lord", later also that of " beer lord " and auditor of the brandy distillers. His son Johann Wolter Schaaffhausen, baptized on January 22, 1726 (death note: July 9, 1786) - the father of Abraham Schaaffhausen - was a banker, merchant, councilor and church master of the parish of St. Jacob. The mother Maria Sibylla (* around 1730, † 1815) was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Knaben, lay judge in Cologne-Worringen .

Career

Schaaffhausen received his training in his father's company. After his entry in the city register of the city of Cologne on March 10, 1777, while he was still working in his father's business, he took part in a Cologne porcelain and faience factory, which traded under the name Boisseree A. Schaaffhausen from 1805 and was closed in 1822. He took over his father's business and incorporated it into his own trading company, which was founded in 1790 or 1791 and, in addition to transport, freight forwarding and real estate, also operated banking. The latter became more and more important. He generated the necessary equity capital for his banking business through his goods trading activities. Gradually he stopped trading in goods and only operated banking. From 1797 he was listed in the Cologne address book as a "Banquier", commission and forwarding agent in Trankgasse 2418. Corporate loans were granted; their recipients were in particular the textile entrepreneurs in the area ( Scheibler , Schoeller , Brügelmann , Dilthey ) or the Rhenish leather, sugar and paper industries. Since the 1820s, the bank has also financed the heavy and machine industries that developed in the Aachen district and the Saar area. Schaaffhausen, like other Cologne private bankers of his generation, was one of the first bankers ever to issue industrial loans. Schaaffhausen was one of the first banks to operate the issuing business with stocks and bonds for industrial financing. The A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein was one of the three most successful Cologne private banks , along with the JH Stein and Herstatt Bank .

Therese Schaaffhausen

On January 13, 1794, Schaaffhausen acquired the Graeflich-Salm-Dickschen Hof ("Die Aue") in Cologne's Trankgasse 25, shortly afterwards on June 12, 1794, he married Maria Anna Giesen ("Sybille"), who came from a Bad Honnef boatman family. . She died early on February 5, 1797 of the consequences of the birth (January 29, 1797) of her daughter Maria Sibilla Josepha . On April 19, 1800, Maria Therese Lucie de Maes (born March 21, 1777 in Roermond , † December 30, 1867 in Cologne) moved in as the new wife in Trankgasse. From 1801, six children were born at short intervals. The youngest daughter was Elisabeth Deichmann-Schaaffhausen .

Napoleon I designated Schaaffhausen as the “Maire” (mayor) of Cologne during the French occupation on November 25, 1800, but Schaaffhausen, who was used to office, refused for business and private reasons: “Mes facultés & mes affaires privées”. Napoleon came to Cologne on September 13, 1804 as emperor, one of the "bonnes villes" of Germany. He did not fail to take a look at Schaaffhausen, whereupon the following dialogue should have developed between the two of them: “Are there millionaires here?” - “Yes, Sire, but no one has come since 1797.” - “Look - a proud German! " .

As early as 1810, Schaaffhausen was considered the most important banker in Cologne. The equity of his bank increased from 80,000 thalers (1800) to 140,000 thalers (1810) and finally 550,000 thalers (1825). When Abraham Schaaffhausen found out in 1815 that the Rhineland had been slammed into Prussia by the Congress of Vienna , he is said to have exclaimed in horror: “Jesse Maria, do hierode mer ävver in en ärm famillich!” (“Jesus Maria, we're getting married into a poor family ! "). From 1807 the real estate business became the actual core of the company. Schaaffhausen benefited above all from the secularization of the monasteries. In 1817 he bought Morsbroich Castle ; the couple liked the area so much that they were buried in Leverkusen-Schlebusch.

Crisis in his bank

As a result of secularization since 1807, real estate trading has become the main business of the bank. In addition to Schaaffhausen, city architect Johann Peter Weyer and the banker Friedrich Herstatt played the leading roles. The largest single transaction in 1818 was the acquisition of 46 properties for more than 2 million thalers. Since the sale of the real estate could not be completed profitably in a timely manner, the tied-up capital in connection with other large real estate transactions during the years 1838 to 1846 ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the house in 1848. The aging Schaaffhausen wanted the management of his troubled company in the hands of the the younger generation. His son-in-law Joseph Ludwig "Louis" Mertens initially took over the management in 1816 and in 1820 became the main shareholder of the bank. This was followed in 1830 by Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann , who had been an apprentice at the bank in 1818 and married Elisabeth Deichmann-Schaaffhausen - A. Schaaffshausen's youngest daughter - in 1830 . As a rescue, Abraham Oppenheim , Gustav Mevissen and other donors converted the company into A. Schaaffhausen'schen Bankverein . This was the first share-based bank in Germany. Deichmann managed the bank through its crisis in 1848 until 1857.

Offices

Schaaffhausen's influence in the economic life of the region secured him numerous offices. On June 20, 1782, he was appointed "infirmary". 36 representatives of the Gaffeln were sent to the 49-member Cologne city council , so that 13 members were still missing to complete (“broken”). These were called infirmaries, but were among the most respected and influential people in the city. On September 24, 1784, Schaaffhausen was appointed fiscal judge, and on February 29, 1788 he was appointed commissioner of the Gürzenich department store . When he was appointed mayor of Cologne by Napoleon on November 25, 1800, he refused the office. In 1801 he became president of the commercial court, in 1811 a member of the municipal council, and from 6 February 1812 a member of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce. He held these offices until his death. On March 13, 1816, he was appointed to the Council of Commerce, and on January 17, 1822, he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle, third class.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hanns Martin Elster: The Rhine Countess - The life of the Cologne woman Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen . 1935.
  2. ^ Sandra Zeumer: The Cologne private banks and industrial financing in the early 19th century . 2003, p. 13. http://wigeschbib.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/Startseite/Abschlussarbeiten/Sandra_Zeumer.pdf (link not available)
  3. ^ A b Gabriele B. Clemens: Real estate dealers and speculators . 1995, p. 156. online
  4. ^ Carsten Gerner-Beuerle: The liability of issuing consortia . 2009, p. 30. online
  5. ^ Wolfgang Henrich: House Carstanjen
  6. ↑ «Vous êtes un fier Allemand!»
  7. ↑ The Lord Mayor of the Federal City of Bonn (ed.): Stadtchronik Bonn , p. 5. online ( Memento of December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.2 MB)
  8. ↑ The grave still exists today
  9. ^ Karl Kaufhold, Hans-Jürgen Gerhard: Structure and Dimension: Middle Ages and Early Modern Times . 1997, p. 393. online

literature

personal data
SURNAME Schaaffhausen, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schaaffhausen, Johann Abraham Anton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cologne banker
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1756
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1824
Place of death Cologne