Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann

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Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann
EH v. Schimmelmann by Christian Albrecht Jensen (1827)

Ernst Heinrich Graf von Schimmelmann (born December 4, 1747 in Dresden , † February 9, 1831 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish finance and foreign minister .

Life

Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann was the eldest son of Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann and Caroline Tugendreich von Friedeborn (1730–1795). From 1759 he lived with his family in Holstein , where his father had bought Ahrensburg Castle . There the later deaf and dumb teacher Samuel Heinicke was his tutor. Schimmelmann then went on a grand tour through England, France and Italy, where he studied political economy . After his return in 1767 he entered the civil service as a conference councilor and soon rose there under his father. In 1771 he traveled to Norway.

In 1775 he married Emilie Caroline Christiane Rantzau (* 1752). The marriage remained childless. She died of tuberculosis in 1780. In her memory, Schimmelmann had Nicolai Abildgaard build the classicist Emilienbrunnen on Strandvej in front of his country house Sølyst near Klampenborg ( Gentofte Kommune ). Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg dedicated the poem Hellebæk to her after the couple's summer residence near the Schimmelmann rifle factory in Hellebæk .

Schimmelmann and his second wife Charlotte together with Jens Baggesen at the Emilienbrunnen near Copenhagen (painting by Hans Jørgen Hammer )

After the death of his father in 1782, Schimmelmann inherited the castle and feudal county Lindenborg near Aalborg in North Jutland and took over the management of the fideikommiss family . He received over 100,000 Reichstaler annually from his father's plantations in the Danish colonies of Saint Thomas , Saint Croix and Saint Jan in the West Indies .

In 1782 he concluded a second marriage with Charlotte Schubart (1757-1816), who also remained childless. Instead of their own children, the couple adopted two orphaned girls, their niece Josephine and Louise, who was the same age. His second wife worked as a salonier and promoter of culture. The Schimmelmann couple, Jens Baggesen and Adam Oehlenschläger, financed trips abroad. Together with Prince Friedrich Christian von Augustenburg , in 1791 they offered Schiller an annual pension of 1,000 thalers, which was paid to him for five years in order to relieve him of financial worries during his illness. She also took a large part in the enlightened reforms that her husband and his colleagues introduced in the entire Danish state .

In 1783, Schimmelmann, together with Christian Ditlev Reventlow and Andreas Peter Bernstorff , prepared the overthrow of Ove Høegh-Guldberg , who had ruled for the insane King Christian VII since 1772 . Under the new regent, the young Crown Prince Friedrich , Schimmelmann became Danish Minister of Finance and Trade in 1784 . Together with Reventlow and Bernstorff, he successfully worked towards modernizing the economy and industry. Until 1800 Denmark was therefore considered the most progressive state in Europe. In 1790 he was accepted into the elephant order .

In 1792, Schimmelmann obtained the ban on the slave trade, which did not come into force until 1803. He also advocated better treatment of the slaves. Until the ban on the slave trade came into effect, Schimmelmann not only continued to benefit from slavery, which made his sugar cane plantations and sugar refinery in Copenhagen, but also granted loans that allowed other plantation owners to obtain more slaves before the ban came into effect .

During the Napoleonic Wars from 1800 to 1813, which Schimmelmann did not counter with his financial policy, the Danish national debt increased from 10.5 million talers to 142 million, which led to the Danish bankruptcy in 1813 . The currency reform that Schimmelmann then implemented led to a massive devaluation of money and a further decline in the economy. Part of the family fortune was also lost. Schimmelmann lost the Ministry of Finance, but remained a member of the government.

In 1824 he took over the Foreign Ministry, which ran until his death in 1831.

He is buried next to his two wives in the St. Petri Church of the German-speaking congregation in Copenhagen, whose church patron he was since 1800 and whose reconstruction he led after the destruction caused by the bombing of Copenhagen in 1807 .

ancestry

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Diedrich Jacob Schimmelmann (1683–1743)
businessman and councilor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann (1724–1782)
businessman and count
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Esther Elisabeth Ludendorff (1684–1752)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann (1747–1831)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alexander von Friedeborn (1690–1752)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Caroline Tugendreich Friedeborn (1730–1795)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Maria Katharina von Muellenheim-Rechberg
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Bettina Albrod: The photo album of the Schimmelmanns . Lübecker Nachrichten December 31, 2013