David Splitgerber
David Splitgerber (born October 18, 1683 in Jacobshagen , near Stargard, Pomerania; † February 23, 1764 in Berlin ) was a Prussian merchant, manufacturer and banker. Together with his partner Gottfried Adolph Daum , he created the largest commercial enterprise in Prussia at the time, the trading house Splitgerber & Daum .
Origin and family
Splitgerber saw the light of day in a Pomeranian mill. His father was the miller and mill owner David Splitgerber (also split tanner, split fermenter) in Jacobshagen The family cohesion must have been strong, because Splitgerber supported a younger brother during his studies and determined in his will that his nephew David Friedrich Splitgerber was accepted into the management. Business relations existed with another nephew, Johann (John) Christian Splitgerber, who ran a trading house in London. One year after his death, support was paid to the widowed mayor Splitgerber in Jacobshagen. Splitgerber's only son was David von Splitgerber, who was raised to hereditary nobility by King Friedrich Wilhelm II .
First beginnings
After training in Stettin, Splitgerber got a job as an accountant with the respected businessman Gottfried Gregory in Berlin. The joint ventures with his partner Daum began in 1712. Their first residential and business district was a small furnished apartment in the house of the widow Reichenau (also Reichenow) Gertraudenstrasse and Grünstrasse (at the Petrikirche ) in Berlin. This is where the diverse relationships with the Brandenburg-Prussian court began. Her late husband was a court pharmacist and her son was a court medicus. A family connection later came about with the marriage between Splitgerber and the daughter of the court doctor, Johanna Dorothea.
However, due to his military and family roots in Saxony, Daum took care of the first larger deals. Cannon balls and tubes for a total of 66,000 thalers were delivered to the Saxon elector August the Strong , who was at the time in the Great Northern War with Sweden . In 1716 the cooperation with the Prussian court began. Friedrich Wilhelm I , the soldier king, was also the first to order artillery ammunition. The balance of the six early years was a modest net profit of 10,450 thalers. Gottfried Daum had given the king the idea of setting up his own arms factory. Daum recruited the necessary skilled workers mainly in Liège under difficult circumstances, and a year later (1722) Splitgerber and Daum were able to lease the manufactory set up by the king.
Years together
The basis of the collaboration between Splitgerber and Daum was the contract renewed in 1723, which was concluded with mutual brotherly love . The death regulation showed how trusting the partnership was. The surviving part had the sole right of management, while the heirs were excluded from any involvement in the course of business.
The success of Splitgerber & Daum is closely linked to the rise of Prussia to become a major European power. The measures initiated by the Great Elector after the Thirty Years' War to remedy the misery in the settlement policy and the state promotion of trade and textiles were continued to a greater extent by the successors of Friedrich Wilhelm I , the Soldier King and Frederick the Great . Splitgerber and Daum were there when it came to taking on difficult tasks with financial risk. In addition to the lucrative rifle factory, they leased other royal manufacturers, which were less profitable despite great efforts. This included blacksmiths, blast furnaces, smelting works and hammer mills for the production of copper sheets (for roofing), copper kettles (for breweries, settlements), brass parts (containers, fittings, hinges) and iron and steel products (scissors, knives, weapons). Apart from the copper manufactory, which had no competition for metal sheets and large vessels, there were considerable sales problems for all small products such as jugs, pots, knives and scissors. Reasons were the high prices set by the crown with comparatively low quality and the unrestrained smuggling and surreptitious trade in cheaper and better goods.
In contrast, the leased Königliche Gewehrfabrik Potsdam-Spandau was a profitable business , although the king set prices and there was no continuous production. In times of armament and war, the demand exceeded the capacity of the factory, so that rifles had to be bought without profit from third-party production, while in peacetime orders were not received. Exports abroad, which also had to be approved, were rare. Splitgerber and Daum, however, continued to pay their skilled workers the wages. In addition to these difficulties came the slow payments made by Frederick the Great , who once wrote: The Lord will get money when it is time. He and his consorts are willing to be patient .
The Silesian Wars brought considerable profits , which both strengthened the equity capital of the trading company and increased private wealth.
The long-standing cooperation in state-owned companies brought Splitgerber and Daum the favor of the two rulers and ensured them steady growth in the banking business. By trading in gold, silver, coins and securities and financing the royal projects, they achieved the status of court bank. The immense funds for the recruitment of soldiers ran through their accounts. The otherwise thrifty Friedrich Wilhelm I is said to have spent over a million thalers just on buying the Lange Kerls . The most profitable core business, however, was always the actual trading house with connections to almost all European trading centers and its own ocean-going fleet, which consisted of around six ships. Since losses were offset by new acquisitions, Splitgerber & Daum owned around twenty ships over the years, along with some ship investments and several coasters.
Signs of prosperity were the acquisition of real estate in various locations and the construction of a handsome commercial building at Gertraudenstrasse 16 by Philipp Gerlach (1735), which remained the headquarters until 1910. In 1736 Gottfried Daum moved into a newly built house in Potsdam and Splitgerber bought the house on Quarrée (square in front of the Brandenburg Gate ), later called Splitgerbersches Palais , in 1741 , which became the French embassy in 1835 (today Pariser Platz with the new embassy building). There were also other properties in Potsdam and Stralau. Daum did not live to see the completion of his Berlin house on Breitestrasse. He died in 1743.
Split tanner's sole rule
As the contract of 1723 provided, Splitgerber continued to run the trading company alone. The inheritance gave it the new name "Splittgerber and Daumsche Erben". Daum's death seems to have triggered considerations about a successor at Splitgerber, who at that time was already 62 years old, especially since his son, David jun., Showed other talents. He hired junior staff and a few years later married his two underage daughters to the most capable men. One was Johann Jacob Schickler , the other Friedrich Heinrich Berendes.
During the next twenty years under the leadership of Splitgerber, sugar factories were founded and bought, lost ships replaced, warehouses built at important trading centers and other real estate acquired, such as the building on Dönhoffplatz (1746), later known as Schickler House . In 1760 he bought the Lichterfelde manor near Eberswalde and the dairy in Charlottenburg.
Split tanner as a garden lover
When the trading house was founded, Splitgerber set up a separate garden account. The gardens he laid out, expanded and beautified were sights. The garden behind his house at the Brandenburg Gate extended as far as the Spree. Only later was the property divided several times and now houses the French embassy on the front part. In 1746 he designed the garden of the house on Dönhoffplatz. In 1748 he bought the garden from the Truchsess-Waldburgschen heirs , which had been created on the site of Bastion VII of the former city fortifications. Frederick the Great donated the rest of the bastion and Splitgerber was able to create the baroque garden, which is now part of the Köllnischer Park with the bear kennel. In 1756 he beautified his estate in Strahlau.
Death and Succession
Splitgerber died on February 23, 1764. He had survived his wife and two daughters, so that on his death his son David inherited his four grandsons, including David Schickler , who later ran the house. Splitgerber's sons-in-law were appointed successors in the management, which was trained as a troika. Splitgerber appointed his nephew David Friedrich Splitgerber, whom he had brought from England, as the third managing director. The own son had been excluded from the management. Splitgerber was considered by his contemporaries to be the richest man in Prussia. His share of the capital in the trading house was 650,000 thalers at his death.
literature
- Peter Bahl : The Court of the Great Elector , Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-08300-3
- Felix Escher: Splitgerber, David. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 731 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Johann David Erdmann Preuß: Friedrich the Great , Vol. 1, Nauck, Berlin 1832
- Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: The history of the banking house Gebrüder Schickler , commemorative publication for the 200th anniversary, Verlag G. Reimer, Berlin 1912. digitized by the University of Toronto
- Wolfgang Schneider: Berlin. A cultural history in pictures and documents , Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig / Weimar 1980
- Nadja Stulz-Herrnstadt: Berlin bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries , publisher: de Gruyter 2002, ISBN 3-11-016560-0 u. ISBN 978-3-11-016560-9
- Wilhelm Treue: Economic and technical history of Prussia , Verlag De Gruyter 1984, ISBN 978-3-11-009598-2
- Wilhelm Treue: David Splitgerber (1683–1764). An entrepreneur in the Prussian mercantile state . In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , Vol. 41 (1954), pp. 235–267
Individual evidence
- ↑ The mayor named in various sources emerged from the family sixty years later.
- ^ Friedrich Förster: Detailed handbook of the history, geography and statistics of the Prussian Empire , Christiani Verlag, Berlin 1820, p. 460
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 116
- ^ Margrit Schulte Beermühl: German merchants in London , Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58038-8
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 114
- ^ Peter Bahl: The Court of the Great Elector , Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-08300-3 , page 561
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 34
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler f, p 82, 90, 132, 136, 171st
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 90
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 38
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 85
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 108/109
- ↑ House numbers were only introduced in Berlin in 1799.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p.15
- ↑ House numbers were only introduced in Berlin in 1799.
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , page 53
- ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Otto Unholtz: History of Bankhaus Gebrüder Schickler , p 57
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Splitgerber, David |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prussian entrepreneur and banker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 18, 1683 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Jacobshagen |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 23, 1764 |
| Place of death | Berlin |