Benjamin George

Benjamin George , (born November 22, 1739 in Berlin ; † January 13, 1823 there ) was a Berlin distiller, entrepreneur and builder. The Georgegarten on the Spree and in 1798 the still existing Georgenstrasse at the Berlin Friedrichstrasse station were named after him.

family

Benjamin George came from a family of the French colony in Berlin who immigrated from Metz after the Edict of Potsdam in 1685 . He was the son of the Berlin army supplier Louis George (1711-1770) and the grandson of the French-born master baker Louis George (1678-1760). The brothers of the father, who was already born in Berlin, were Samuel George (1715–1783), 1771–1783 preacher of the French Reformed congregation in Berlin-Friedrichstadt, and the brewery owner Benjamin George (1712–1771); his daughter was Madame Du Titre , b. Marie Anne George (1748-1827). The painters Susanne Henry (1763–1819), born in the French Colony of Berlin, also belonged to the close relatives . Chodowiecka, and Louise Henry , b. Claude (1798-1839).

Life

Benjamin George was educated in the Berlin facilities of the French Colony and also completed a commercial apprenticeship here. The practical training to become a distiller took place in his uncle's brewery. George founded his economic success with his own distillery "Zur Goldenen Kugel" in Zimmerstrasse in Berlin. 84–87 as well as with various import and export businesses of the "trading company Benjamin George" which he founded. The company was sometimes also referred to as a bank, as it granted large loans for the Prussian wool trade. In 1760 George married the daughter of his Berlin business partner, Sara Elisabeth Jouin (1742-1813). In May 1785, George, who was already too prosperous, bought a large piece of land on Friedrichstrasse, bordered by the banks of the Spree and the so-called Katzenstieg, and built the largest private apartment building in Berlin here using a construction technique unknown in Prussia. The associated park-like garden was open to the public and the venue for regular series of concerts. According to a list from 1801, George was one of the richest Berliners of the epoch with private assets of 250,000 thalers. Of his numerous children, only the daughters Anna Sara and Susanne Louise survived, who were married to business partners Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow and Jean Jouanne. The enormous social rise of the family within three generations manifested itself in an almost aristocratic lifestyle: the grandson Carl von Treskow acquired the Friedrichsfelde Palace , located just outside the city, in 1816 , the grandson Jean Charles Jouanne had been the lord of the Britz Palace since 1824 . The sandstone sarcophagi of the George family are still a sight in the cemetery of the French community on Chausseestrasse .

Georgenstrasse

With the purchase of the property, extensive measures were taken to drain the damp land. The Katzenstieg between Friedrichstrasse and the banks of the Spree ran along the Katzengraben, which was created to drain the so-called Modderlochs. When the house was rebuilt, the previous Katzenstieg was expanded, paved and paved with sidewalks at Benjamin George's expense. Since 1798, the street that today leads from Friedrichstrasse station to Museum Island has been referred to as "Georgenstrasse" on Berlin city maps.

George House

The three-wing apartment building on Friedrichstrasse, built between 1796 and 1798, with its outbuildings on Georgenstrasse caused a sensation in various respects: Benjamin George introduced a construction technique that had come to France via India and was still unknown in Prussia: the architect David Gilly , who closely followed the building project, dedicated the essay on the foundation of buildings on sunken and bricked wells to this new method in 1804 . After completion of the house, which with over 100 heatable rooms was the largest private house in Berlin and the largest apartment building in the Kingdom of Prussia, David Gilly published his extensive building description in the collection of useful essays on architecture in 1798 . From then on, the Swedish and Russian ambassadors resided in the representative apartments in the main building, which had up to eighteen rooms and halls. In 1804, large receptions were held here for the French marshal Géraud Christophe Michel Duroc and the writer Germaine de Staël . The American ambassador and later US President John Quincy Adams describes the New Year's Eve ball 1799/1800 in this “superb house” in his diary. The numerous prominent tenants (including Johannes von Müller , Alexander von Humboldt , Heinrich Gentz , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Bettina von Arnim , Peter Beuth , Karl Ludwig von Woltmann , Carl von La Roche , Franz Lauska , Rahel Varnhagen von Ense , Karl Friedrich Zelter , Georg Christian von Heydebreck ) made the so-called "Maison George" a social center of Berlin classicism . Benjamin George's heirs sold the house to the Prussian state in 1824. Until its demolition in 1912 and the move into the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy, the building was the seat of the Pépinière military medical training center , officially renamed the Friedrich Wilhelm Institute in 1818.

George garden

The back garden of the Georgehaus on the banks of the Spree visually merged into the baroque park of the former Villa Kamecke , separated only by canals , whose orangery had converted the Masonic lodge “Royal York de l'Amitié” into a widely used festival and concert hall in 1796/1797. The design of the George garden was entrusted to the gardener Friedrich Fintelmann, to whom Benjamin George had given the garden house on the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Georgenstrasse for permanent use. With a Turkish-looking pavilion built on the ice cellar, poplar and acacia avenues, canals, flower beds and numerous garden sculptures, the publicly accessible garden was not only a popular excursion destination, but also the location of the summer concerts organized by Georg Abraham Schneider from 1807–1811 , which featured prominent representatives the court society like Prince Anton Radziwill played music together with middle-class amateurs and future world stars like Giacomo Meyerbeer . The gardens were continuously reduced in size during the 19th century. Today the Berlin Friedrichstrasse station and the so-called Tränenpalast are located on the site .

Web links

• The Royal Medical-Surgical Friedrich Wilhelm Institute in the German Digital Library (DDB)
• Berlin Mitte (1780-1822) on the website of the family association of the family v. Treskow

literature

• The register of the George family in the archive of the French Church in Berlin.
• Will Benjamin George, Dahlem State Secret Archives, HA Ministry of Foreign Affairs III, No. 5202.
• Albrecht Daniel Thaer: About the wool storage facility of Mr. Benj. George zu Berlin , in: Möglinsche Annalen der Landwirtschaft, Berlin 1823, Vol. 9, pp. 375–379.
• Floor plan of the royal. Residenzstädte , Berlin rebuilt in 1798 by Karl Ludwig von Oelsfeld (first use of the name Georgenstrasse).
• David Gilly: Collection of useful essays on architecture. For budding builders and friends of architecture . Berlin 1798, vol. 2, p. 126 f.
• David Gilly: About the foundation of the building on bricked wells , Berlin 1804. https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10048357_00005.html
• Volker Wagner: The Dorotheenstadt in the 19th century. From the suburban residential area of ​​the baroque style to part of the modern city of Berlin , Berlin 1998, pp. 131, 142.
• Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt: Berlin bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries , Berlin and New York, 2002, pp. 112–114.
• Rüdiger v. Treskow: The ideal of bliss. Berlin intellectual life in the Georgehaus 1798-1824 , in: Berlin in the past and present. Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives 2017, pp. 77–109.