Bank Seligmann

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The listed former "Bankhaus Seligmann", formerly Neustadt 5, today Deinhardplatz 5

The Seligmann bank was founded in Koblenz in 1811 . In 1844 a branch of the company was opened in Cologne. The bank existed until its bankruptcy in 1932.

history

The ancestor of the Seligmann banking family, Moses Seligmann (1753–1842), came from a Jewish cattle dealer family in Oberbieber (now a district of Neuwied , then part of the County of Wied ). At the beginning of the 1770s he moved to Koblenz , which at that time was the residence of the Electors of Trier . He worked as a money dealer and married Nanette Dahl (approx. 1757-1827), who came from a respected Jewish family. Probably in 1811 one of Moses Seligman's sons, Leopold (1787–1857), received his first commercial patent for wool and textile trade , which was granted after the decree on trade, commerce, freedom of movement and military service of the Jews (the so-called décret infame = shameful decree ) from 1808 was necessary and had to be renewed annually. The decree, which was valid until 1843, kept Jews second class citizens.

Leopold Seligmann is considered to be the bank's founder, and the bank itself later considered 1811 to be the year it was founded. After 1815, Seeligman switched to trading in money and securities . He lived and worked in Koblenz in the house Paradeplatz 467. In 1844 he opened in Cologne, Casinostr. 14, a branch of his private banking house, which continued to trade as "Handlung"; From this point onwards, Seligmann called himself a banker . The purchase of further buildings in Casinostrasse and Pipinstrasse resulted in a large complex near the church of St. Maria im Kapitol . In Cologne, the bank hoped for numerous investment and financing opportunities in the up-and-coming heavy industry and in the railway sector . Despite the growing economic importance of the Cologne branch, Bankhaus Seligmann remained an "upstart" compared to the city's leading financial institutions.

Moritz Seligmann (1876)
Gustav Seligmann

Seligmann became a wealthy man; his family maintained numerous social and family relationships, especially with other wealthy Jewish families, such as the Cologne bankers Oppenheim and the Wittgenstein and Figdor families . He was enthusiastic about art and brought together a valuable collection of pictures, furniture and other art objects, which his descendants looked after and expanded, and he supported the Koblenz Music Institute . He died in Koblenz in 1857.

With his wife Henriette (1794–1821), née Landau, Leopold Seligmann had a total of seven surviving sons. Three of them converted to Protestantism . Since three other sons were unmarried and childless, only the descendants of the son Eduard, who had a daughter, of the Seligmann family remained connected to Judaism. After the death of Leopold Seligmann, four of his sons took over the bank: Bernhard (1815–1899), who became “senior boss” in Koblenz, as well as Jakob (1818–1891), Heinrich (1835–1909) and Moritz (1840–1915), who managed the branch in Cologne. The eldest son Adolph did not join the bank, but became the first family member to study and became a lawyer. Like his brother Eduard, who had become a doctor, he settled in Cologne.

The bank's seat in Koblenz was relocated to Neustadt 6; the main building on Paradeplatz was only used for private residential purposes. Bernhard Seligmann and his Dutch wife Sara (1829–1890), née Rosenik, maintained personal contacts with the Prussian prince and later German Emperor Wilhelm I and his wife Augusta , who enjoyed spending time in Koblenz. The couple had the neighboring house Neustadt 5 converted into a splendid city palace. After the death of the unmarried brother August Seligmann (1820–1901), about whose professional activities nothing is known, it was sold in 1901. The building still exists and is a listed building .

Parallel to the two branches of the bank in Cologne and Koblenz, two branches of the family have formed in the third generation. In April 1894, the future Chancellor Konrad Adenauer began an apprenticeship at the Seligmann bank in Cologne, which he gave up after a few weeks in favor of studying. The industrialist Ernst Busemann and the stock market speculator Stephan von Sarter were also trained at Seligmann.

Gustav Seligmann (1849–1920) was a representative of the fourth generation of the family since that of Moses Seligmann . The bank initially had its most glamorous days under his leadership, and in 1911 it celebrated its 100th anniversary. The company benefited from the economic optimism of the early days , and the Seligmanns acquired extensive real estate holdings in Koblenz. Gustav Seligmann made a name for himself privately as a mineralogist ; the mineral seligmannite was named after him. He married Maria Liebermann von Sonnenberg (1848–1920), who came from a Prussian officer family; with that the family had entered the Prussian upper class. It saw itself as "Prussian", with fatal consequences: Out of patriotic conviction and in the performance of his "patriotic duty for Reich and Kaiser", Gustav Seligmann signed war bonds in the First World War in the amount of his private fortune, which was estimated at four to five million marks Most of the bank's equity and allegedly also put customer deposits in war bonds. After the defeat in the war, this money was lost. When Gustav Seligmann and his wife Maria died within five hours on June 28, 1920, this gave rise to speculation.

As a result of these huge losses, Bankhaus Seligmann experienced financial difficulties throughout the 1920s, which were exacerbated by the global economic crisis. From 1929 the personally liable partners of the family tried to monetize all available goods in order to avert the impending bankruptcy . Real estate and art collections were sold, as well as mortgages and loans. Leopold (Heinrich) Seligmann (1886–1946), grandson of Gustav Seligmann and son of his son Heinrich, deposited his valuable art collection at the A. Levy & Co. bank in April 1930 in Berlin for 250,000 Reichsmarks auctioned after their value had been estimated in advance at at least double the amount. The driving force behind the bank at that time was his nephew Paul Seligmann (1875–1944), who, despite the financial problems of his family, had the representative Villa Am Südpark 47 in Cologne-Marienburg built in the 1920s, which is now a listed building . Despite the efforts of well-known Cologne industrialists and bankers such as Robert Pferdmenges and Paul Silverberg and after the Reich Ministry of Economics refused to extend a guarantee, the bank finally had to close in 1932 due to bankruptcy. The liquidation of the company dragged on until 1938.

On August 16, 1938, an article by the Koblenz city ​​archivist Hans Bellinghausen about the history of the Seligmann bank appeared in the Nationalblatt . In terms of content, the article was kept factual, but appeared under the heading "Exploiter of the Citizens - Old Koblenz and the Jewish Plague". The article concluded with the sentence: "Some butchers, traders and small Jewish merchants are still at the very edge of this historical overview of the importance of Koblenz Jewry, which also saw here that its role in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich was played out."

Fate of the family

Several male descendants of the Seligmann family died in the war or died before the end of the Second World War . Some family members gave up the " stigmatizing " name Seligmann - for example, Paul Seligmann's sons were given the surname Selldorf at the instigation of their mother Ludovica - while others emigrated abroad or were adopted by non-Jewish relatives. The baptism certificate of her great-grandmother Sara Seligmann (1829–1890) helped two descendants to obtain an " Aryan certificate ". Other family members who were registered as “Jews” or “Jewish first-degree mixed race” apparently remained largely unmolested. Klara Fuchs, a daughter of Heinrich Seligmann, stayed with friends in Bad Godesberg . There she was killed on February 15, 1945 together with her son, daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and other people in a bomb attack.

Leopold Seligmann was also classified as a "first degree Jewish mixed race". Until his wife's death in 1935, he was protected by his marriage to an " Aryan woman " in a " privileged mixed marriage" . In August 1939 he was denounced with a charge of “ racial disgrace ” because he allegedly had a relationship with the wife of a “ party member ” and her sister. The case is closed. Probably from 1942 until the end of the war he was hidden as a worker in their factory by the owners of the Cologne paint factory Bollig & Kemper , Hans and Willi Kemper. After the loss of his art collection in 1932, the death of his wife three years later, social exclusion, denouncing charges, and years of hiding under intense mental tension, he was a broken man. He died in 1946.

literature

  • Ulrich Offerhaus: Family and banking house Seligmann in Koblenz and Cologne . Socrates & Friends, 2016, ISBN 978-3-9814234-9-5 .

References and comments

  1. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 41.
  2. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 67.
  3. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 13.
  4. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 99 f.
  5. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 117.
  6. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 14.
  7. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 120 f.
  8. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 123.
  9. Bankhaus Seligmann - Koblenz, Germany. In: waymarking.com. Retrieved July 26, 2020 (English).
  10. On the 45th anniversary of Konrad Adenauer's death: When the old man was still Toni. In: lto.de. April 19, 2012, accessed July 25, 2020 .
  11. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 229 f.
  12. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 247.
  13. Another partner of the bank was the future bank manager Iwan David Herstatt , who had taken over his share from his father Johann David Herstatt and was 26 years old at the time.
  14. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 275 f.
  15. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 339 f.
  16. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 352.
  17. Joachim Hennig: Dr. Hans Bellinghausen - Honor for a Nazi propagandist. June 27, 2018, accessed July 27, 2020 .
  18. The architect Annabelle Selldorf is a granddaughter of Paul Seligmann.
  19. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 265 f.
  20. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 279 f.
  21. ^ Offerhaus, Bankhaus Seligmann , p. 279 f.