Daniel Itzig

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Daniel Itzig
Medal for Itzig's 70th birthday (1793)

Daniel Itzig (born March 18, 1723 in Berlin ; † May 21, 1799 there ) was a royal Prussian court factor and one of the most important Jewish bankers in Prussia. He was also head of the Jewish community in Berlin and state elder of the Jews in the Prussian provinces .

Life

Daniel Itzig was a royal Prussian court factor, coin entrepreneur , chief banker , leather manufacturer, ironworks owner , mining entrepreneur, manor owner , senior state elder of the Prussian Jews in Berlin and in 1778, together with his son-in-law David Friedländer, he founded the first Jewish free school, Chevrat Chinuch Ne'arim , the society for boy education ' in Berlin.

Together with Veitel Heine Ephraim , Itzig made his fortune as a coin tenant in the Seven Years War (1756–1763). The Prussian King Friedrich II appointed him the highest representative of the Jews in Prussia. Subsequently, he was court factor of the subsequent Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm II. In 1791 he was the first Jew to receive the Prussian naturalization patent for himself and his family , i.e. legal equality with the Christian subjects of Prussia.

Fixed to the one hand, the tradition - it was since 1764. Upper elder of the Jewish community in Berlin - on the other hand open to the contemporary arts and sciences, Itzig let his 15 children, and that his daughters as well as his sons, time according to the European Enlightenment educate obliged under others by the composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn . A contemporary once wrote: "Itzig's daughters increase the grace of their beauty through their talents, especially for music, and through a finely educated mind."

Daniel Itzig, modern upper-class citizen and head of one of the most respected and wealthy families in Berlin, together with other like-minded people who had rallied around Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin since around 1770, contributed significantly to the fact that von Mendelssohn and his Supporters carried out reform work and Berlin could become the starting point and center of the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe.

Palais Itzig around 1857

At the corner of Burgstrasse and today's Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Strasse , he bought a complex of five houses - including the Palais Montargues built by Philipp Gerlach in 1718 - and had it converted into a stately palace by 1765. His great-grandson Friedrich Hitzig was supposed to tear it down in 1859 and build the new stock exchange here as an architect.

The reputation of Itzig's family is shown by the fact that the future Queen Luise , when she and her sister came from Mecklenburg-Strelitz to Berlin in 1795 , saw the Itzig'sche Haus in Schöneberger Hauptstrasse in preparation for her festive entry the Brandenburg Gate was selected.

Itzig was buried in the old Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse. Despite his positive attitude towards the modern Jewish Enlightenment, he remained faithful to Jewish tradition throughout his life, which is why his tombstone naturally received a traditional Hebrew inscription.

family

Daniel Itzig, himself from a less well-to-do family, married Mirjam Wulff (1727–1788) on August 9, 1747 from a very wealthy family. They had 15 children. Three of her five sons were Freemasons .

  • Hanne Itzig (1748–1801) married her cousin Dr. med. Joseph Fliess (* 1745), landowner and councilor.
  • Bilka / Bella (Babette) Itzig (1749–1824) married Levin Jacob Salomon (1738–1783). Their daughter Lea Salomon married the banker Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy , and their children included Fanny Hensel , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Rebecka Dirichlet .
  • Isaak Daniel Itzig (1750–1806) was a Prussian court building officer and banker. In his second marriage he was married to Edel Wulff (1764-1851).
  • In 1772, Blümchen Itzig (1752–1814) married the silk manufacturer David Friedländer (1750–1834) from Königsberg ( East Prussia ), a student and friend of Moses Mendelssohn.
  • Moses Daniel Itzig (1753–1783) was married to Mirjam Oppenheimer, died at the age of thirty and left a daughter Kela (1782–1856), who married Michael Wolff (1771–1856), a business partner of Mendel Oppenheim.
  • Elias Daniel Itzig (1755-1818; from 1799: Hitzig) became a leather manufacturer and city councilor in Potsdam. He was married to Miriam Leffmann. His children included Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780–1849), Henriette Hitzig (1781–1845), the future wife of Nathan Mendelssohn , and Caroline Hitzig (1784–1848), the future wife of Paul Ermans .
  • Bonem (Benjamin) Daniel Itzig (1756-1833) married Zippora Wulff (1760-1831) in 1780.
  • Vögele (Fanny) Itzig (1758–1818) married Nathan Arnstein (later Baron von Arnstein) in Vienna and was the first Viennese Jew to found a literary and musical salon . She was a co-founder of the Vienna Society of Friends of Music, a patron of Mozart and Haydn and, like her sisters Hanna, Zippora and Sara, an excellent harpsichordist.
  • Zippora (Cäcilie) Itzig (1760–1836) married Simcha Bonem (Benjamin) Wulff in 1777, from whom she later divorced. Her second marriage was to the Jewish banker Bernhard Freiherr von Eskeles (1753–1839) in Vienna, where, like her sister Fanny, she ran a salon and promoted Beethoven .
  • Sara Itzig (1761–1854), married to Samuel Salomon Levy (1760–1806) since 1783 , was an excellent harpsichord player who, from around 1800, developed her house, Hinter den Neuen Packhof 3, into a musical and literary salon that lasted half a century .
  • Rebecca Itzig (1763–1846) married David Veitel Ephraim (later: Johann Andreas Schmidt; 1762–1835).
  • Jakob Daniel Itzig (1764–1838) married Sara Wulff (1766–1850) in 1785.
  • Recha Itzig (1766–1841) remained unmarried and bequeathed her fortune to charitable foundations.
  • Henriette Itzig (1767–1842) married the banker Mendel Oppenheim (1758–1820). The Oppenfelds are among their descendants .
  • Lea Itzig (1768–1794) married the merchant Bernhard Seligmann (also: Seeligmann; 1769–1815).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 316.
  2. ↑ Reinhard Rürup : Jewish upper middle class at the end of the 18th century. In: Thematic portal "European history". 2006.
  3. ↑ Ernst Fraenkel : David Friedländer and his time. In: Journal for the History of the Jews in Germany. Issue 2/1936, pp. 65-76.
  4. ↑ Shmuel Feiner : Haskala - Jewish Enlightenment. Story of a cultural revolution. Hildesheim 2007.
  5. ↑ rbb Prussian Chronicle
  6. ↑ Handbook of Berlin Associations and Societies 1786–1815, p. 421

literature

  • Jacob Jacobson : The Jewish books of the city of Berlin 1809-1851 with additions for the years 1791-1809 (= publications of the Berlin historical commission, vol. 4) . de Gruyter, Berlin 1962, p. 51 f .
  • Thekla Keuck: Court Jews and citizens of culture. The history of the Itzig family in Berlin (= Jewish religion, history and culture, vol. 12) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011.
  • Heinrich Schnee:  Itzig, Daniel. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 205 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Daniel Itzig 1723–1799 and his family . In: Detlev Schwennicke (Ed.): European family tables . Volume XXI: Brandenburg and Prussia 2. Degener, Neustadt (Aisch) 2002.

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Itzig, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian court factor and Jewish banker and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1723
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1799
Place of death Berlin