Christian Gottlob Frege

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Christian Gottlob Frege

Christian Gottlob Frege (born November 21, 1715 in Lampertswalde ; † May 20, 1781 in Leipzig ) was an important Leipzig banker and merchant. He had a son and a grandson of the same name.

Life

The son of the Lampertswald pastor Christian Frege (1682–1753) and Johanne Eleonore geb. Gerber (1689–1754) and grandson of the Neuruppin master cloth maker Christian Frege (1655–1731) learned to trade with a shopkeeper in Dresden in 1728. However, he finished this apprenticeship in the same year and began to continue his commercial training with a Leipzig spice dealer, which was followed in 1735 by a job as a clerk at a banker.

With only a small amount of equity, Christian Gottlob Frege founded a company in 1739, the later bank and trading house Frege & Co. which initially traded successfully in fruits and fish, so that the young businessman, as a result of the quickly acquired assets, started trading on bills of exchange and commission Granted loans. He soon started trading with partners from Aachen , Breslau , Freiberg , Amsterdam , Warsaw and other cities, and in the early business years his business connections extended to France, Spain and Portugal. As a result of his marriage in 1743 to the only daughter of a wealthy, respected businessman, Maria Regine Bachmann († 1749), Frege took over Bachmannsche Handlung, a flourishing company with extensive business relationships.

His economic success was based not only on his business, it was based primarily on Frege's solid knowledge of coins, which was in great demand at the Leipzig trade fair location. The reliable banker acted de facto as the central bank , since after several unsuccessful attempts there was no superordinate bank in Saxony. With this, Frege closed a gap in local, commercial events. Merchants who were at the fair in Leipzig changed their coins at Frege, who ultimately also determined the exchange rates of individual types and thus rose to become one of the richest and most respected citizens of Leipzig. Ultimately, the career of Christian Gottlob Frege clearly shows the ambivalence between the merchant and the state in the 18th century, as formulated by Montesquieu in 1748 in Vom Geist der Gesetz ( De l'esprit des lois ).

During the Austrian War of Succession, the Prussian troops who invaded Leipzig in 1745 burdened the trade fair city with contributions amounting to 1.5 million Reichstalers. So Frege began to record his "bad debtors" in a special book that is now considered a forerunner of modern accounts payable . The growing reputation of the Leipzig merchant, however, meant that the Saxon elector claimed his financial help and appointed him cashier of the municipal contribution room in January 1746. Since Frege distributed the contributions to be made evenly among the citizens, trading houses and institutions of the city, he himself paid the immense sum of 400 Reichstalers, and he quickly gained high esteem among the people of Leipzig. For example, the now widowed businessman was considered the favored future husband for many bourgeois daughters. In 1750 he finally married Sophie Wagner, the daughter of the district administrator, as a second marriage. In the same year he bought the Morassina , a vitriol mine in Schmiedefeld . Other works and real estate acquired by him were

Frege's commitment led to the re-establishment of the Leipziger Münze in 1752 with its seat on the Pleißenburg . On August 21, 1753, after the death of the meritorious Obermünzrat Gödeke and at the request of the Dresden court, he also received the concession for the mint, for which no one other than Frege would have been suitable in Leipzig due to the extremely high capital requirements. The coin inspector Christoph Heinrich Ploß soon established himself as his most important employee. He became a partner in the Frege & Co. banking house and whose descendants also played a prominent role in Leipzig's economic life.

The activity of a mint master not only served the well-functioning international economic relations, but also the deterioration of coins, which Frege had to carry out on behalf of Count Brühl . He had to withdraw good old coins that were full-weight in their precious metal content and replace them with inferior types, alloyed with a lot of copper. Until then, this " tilting and rocking " of Electoral Saxon and Polish coins was punished harshly and relentlessly. Frege was permitted to do this with the highest authority, whereby he had to pay attention to strict secrecy. It was only during the Seven Years' War that the occupation of Leipzig by Prussian troops (1757) freed the banker from this ambivalent and risky task. The Leipzig mint was then subordinate to the Berlin mint master Ephraim, who in turn allowed Saxony to be flooded with inferior Prussian coins, the so-called Ephraimites .

Christian Gottlob Frege became councilor in Leipzig in 1759 and the Dresden court appointed him councilor of the Electorate of Saxony in 1763, as his manipulations had saved the Electorate of Saxony from bleeding out financially. In 1760 he bought the Saalfeld alum factory . After the end of the Seven Years' War and the withdrawal of the Prussian troops from Saxony, the again widowed Frege rebuilt the Leipzig Mint with great difficulty. His third marriage, concluded in 1763, to the widow of the lawyer Friedrich Winkler and daughter of the mayor Christian Ludwig Stieglitz , Erdmuthe Sophie, brought him the castle and manor Trossin near Torgau , which he had expanded into a model estate . The farm buildings, which are now under monument protection, were renewed, the administrators of the property received regular instructions and Frege also had a massive influence on the development of the village and the farm. Likewise, in contrast to other Leipzig merchant families, the palace was not used for representation, but as an administrative, residential and farm building.

In 1764 the bustling businessman was one of the co-founders of the “Leipziger Ökonomische Sozietät” , a society that promotes agriculture, business, science and culture, but which also influenced state reforms and the reconstruction of the country. Frege also cooperated with intellectuals and merchants from the trade fair city who had joined forces in the “pro restauratione patriae” movement and headed by Thomas von Fritsch , a Leipzig bookseller's son who, as the head of the rétablissement, initiated state and economic reforms in Saxony from 1763 . Furthermore, Frege supported Peter von Hohenthal (1726–1794), who also came from a Leipzig merchant family , who reorganized the Saxon school system.

The "Leipziger Ökonomische Sozietät" founded shepherd and shepherd schools , helped naturalize the high-performing merino sheep and introduced the cultivation of potatoes , clover and alfalfa in Saxony. It reduced the import of crops such as tobacco and flax, it set up seed cabinets and bought the best seeds, if necessary also from abroad. In addition, the firm took care of the intensification of arable farming, the introduction of high-yield fruit tree crops, the long-term security of feed and the maintenance of livestock. Teachers and pastors were obliged to pass on new knowledge to the farmers. Until his death in 1781, Christian Gottlob Frege, who in the last years of his life cultivated friendships with the painter Adam Friedrich Oeser and the bookseller Philipp Erasmus Reich , remained the head and soul of the society, which in addition to economic development also promoted culture and science committed.

Finally, Frege's social commitment must also be mentioned. During the famine of 1771, for example, he bought wagonloads of grain for the people of Leipzig, made donations to build apartments for the poorest and enabled young musicians to train at the conservatory. His humanistic outlook is also evident in his membership in the Leipzig Freemason Lodge Minerva on the three palms , into which he was admitted in 1772.

Conclusion

Christian Gottlob Frege successfully combined trade in goods, large estate, banking and real estate business with the operation of factories , mining and metallurgical companies. As a monopoly since 1752 he controlled the mining of the alum slate deposits in Thuringia, which had only been discovered a short time before . He also took a leading position in the canvas trade in Spain and Portugal, which he had controlled from the Marseilles branch of his trading house. In 1775 he acquired the important Großenhainer calico factory and got involved in mining in the Ore Mountains. He also took part in a consortium that mined copper and silver in the Mansfeld region. As a result, Frege achieved great economic power that only the Fugger and Welser families had achieved before him and was only achieved again by the Rothschilds after him . After the death of the company founder, the banking house Frege & Co., which had entered the American market, acquired extensive properties in Pennsylvania . The capital generated in the alum and vitriol works was used to finance state affairs in Prussia and Saxony . Among other things, the Freges paid the war burdens for Saxony and Prussia that Napoleon raised in 1806 and bought back the Saxon state treasure he had stolen from Amsterdam in 1816 . Some of the treasures stolen back then can be admired today in the “Green Vault” of Dresden Castle.

The Ascended from the artisan class family Frege was considered a typical family of property and educated middle class and was able to mid-19th century its outstanding position in Leipzig and Sachsen claim from which it was first displaced as a result of industrial development for the 1860th Nevertheless, the politician and manor owner Arnold Woldemar von Frege-Weltzien (1848–1916) was rated as one of the richest men in Saxony at the time of his death.

Exhibition in Leipzig

The exhibition “Between Merkur and Fortuna - Christian Gottlob Frege for his 300th birthday” was shown from September 28, 2015 in the historic customer hall of Deutsche Bank AG in Leipzig, Martin-Luther-Ring 2; It can be seen in the Leipzig State Archives at Schongauerstraße 1 until June 2, 2016. It was acquired from the diverse archive holdings of the banking and trading company Frege & Co. as well as genealogical sources in the State Archives. It was created in cooperation between the Saxon State Archives, State Archives Leipzig, and the City of Leipzig, Department of Economics and Labor, on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the City of Leipzig.

progeny

Christian Gottlob Frege II
Christian Gottlob Frege III

The three wives of Freges gave birth to a total of 15 children between 1744 and 1766, of which three sons and six daughters also had children.

Frege's eldest son Christian Abraham (born May 16, 1744 in Leipzig; † August 31, 1781 (three months after his father) there) successfully managed the branch of the bank in Marseille . His great-grandson was the mathematician, logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), who was born in Wismar .

The second son Christian Gottlob Frege II (born September 9, 1747, † September 3, 1816) continued his father's business in Leipzig after he had been appointed as a partner in 1773. In 1782 he acquired the Fregehaus named after him at Katharinenstrasse 11 in Leipzig, which he had lavishly expanded for representation purposes, and in 1789 the Abtnaundorf manor , whose grounds he redesigned into a spacious park. Frege II was married three times, with the wives each bringing considerable wealth into the marriage. With his first wife, Johanne Caroline nee Bertram, he had three children: Christian Gottlob (1778–1855), Christian Ferdinand (1780–1821) and Christiane Emilie (* 1783). As a widower he married Elisabeth Dufour in 1780 and Anna Elisabeth widowed Dufour in 1814.

Christian Gottlob Frege II was a member of the Leipzig city council and co-founder of the Gewandhaus concerts and was a member of the Gewandhaus directorate until 1785. He also continued his father's social commitment. In 1792 he founded the workhouse for volunteers and a school connected with it, and in 1803 he was a member of the board of directors of the newly founded poor institution.

For his services to the business of the Saxon royal family, August III awarded him. the title "Elector's Secret Saxon Chamber Council". In 1806 the bank negotiated with Napoleon on behalf of the Saxon court about the amount of the contributions and paid a large sum.

His sons Christian Ferdinand Frege, after whom Christianstraße in Leipzig was named, and above all Christian Gottlob Frege III (1778–1855) and his son-in-law Christian Adolph Mayer (1757–1843) successfully continued the fortunes of the bank. Fregestraße was named in honor of Frege III. His grave was reburied from the old Johannisfriedhof on the Leipzig Südfriedhof and can still be visited there. The son of Christian Gottlob Frege III was the lawyer Woldemar Frege (1811–1890), who was ennobled in 1886 and is remembered by the Fregesteg leading across the Elstermühlgraben in the Waldstrasse district . His wife was the singer and patroness Livia Frege (1818-1891), who is remembered with the neighboring Liviastraße. Both sons were the politician and manor owner Arnold Woldemar von Frege-Weltzien (1846–1916), who had Peter Dybwad build Abtnaundorf Palace (now in Leipzig) in the form that still exists today.

The Leipzig councilor Ernst Wilhelm Küstner was his son-in-law.

The former president of the Federal Administrative Court Ludwig Frege (1884–1964) and his grandson Andreas (* 1962), who became prominent as the front man Campino of the band Die Toten Hosen , are descendants of an uncle of Christian Gottlob Frege (Joachim Frege approx. 1687– 1747).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Müller: The influence of the Leipzig banking and trading house Frege on the development of the Thuringian-Franconian alum slate mining. In: Rudolstädter Heimathefte. Volume 45, 5/6, 1999, pp. 148-151.
  2. ^ Matthias Doll: From Bank to Punk: Toten Hosen singer Campino with relatives from Leipzig. ( Memento from February 17, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Dresdner Neue Nachrichten. November 13, 2012. (On the homepage of the Dresdner Neue Nachrichten, accessed on December 31, 2012)
  3. Minerva to the Three Palms: Personalities. (Entrepreneurs and merchants). On the homepage of the Lodge Minerva to the three palms (accessed December 31, 2012)
  4. archiv.sachsen.de ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.archiv.sachsen.de
  5. l-iz.de
  6. Doris Mundus: And by the way, Gewandhaus director. In: Gewandhausmagazin. No. 69, 2010/11, p. 31.

literature

Web links