Georg Friedrich von Dittmer

Georg Friedrich von Dittmer

Thon-Dittmer-Palais in Regensburg

Georg Friedrich von Dittmer (born April 16, 1727 in Bublitz ; † September 16, 1811 in Regensburg ) was a German merchant , banker and first owner of the Thon-Dittmer-Palais on Haidplatz in Regensburg.

Business life

Georg Friedrich von Dittmer was the son of the merchant Adolf Christian Dittmer and his wife Margareta Regine nee. Luebken. The parents lived first in Bublitz, then in Cammin . Dittmer first completed a commercial apprenticeship in Stettin and then worked in Berlin and Bayreuth . In 1750 he went to Regensburg, where he was hired by the Regensburg merchant and wine merchant Johann Eberhardt in 1752, who also traded in salt from Hallein and in mining products from Austria. In 1758 Dittmer acquired citizenship in Regensburg and in the same year married the daughter of his company boss Beata Barbara. In 1760 Dittmer became his father-in-law's business partner. As a merchant and merchant, he was initially very successful in trading salt from Hallein, which was sold to Ansbach, Bayreuth, Bamberg, Würzburg and as far as Württemberg. As return freight he transported wine, which could then be sold in Munich and Regensburg. As a second branch of trade, Dittmer expanded his father-in-law's trade in copper, mercury and cinnabar from Hungary and the Banat to such an extent that his company was able to gain a foothold in France, Holland, Switzerland and even in the West Indies and America. His company also traded in finished products and sold e.g. B. scythes to Russia, said the German Reich in great demand as a return freight Juchtenleder was imported. Dittmer's urge to open up new markets knew no bounds and his company was soon making millions in sales.

1767 was appointed to Dittmer kurbayerischen Hofkammerrat and two years later court banker , so that his company could take action in the following period in the money lending. In 1793/1794, Austria and Bavaria asked Dittmer's company for loans of 2.5 million guilders in the run-up to the First Coalition War between European powers against France. Half of the sum was granted, with 400,000 guilders coming from Dittmer's private fortune, who also provided the Wittelsbach dynasty with 80,000 guilders.

Private life and offspring

In 1781 Dittmer was raised to the Austrian nobility by Emperor Joseph II , called himself Friedrich Edler von Dittmer and requested that this survey be made known in Bavaria free of charge. The Bavarian elector waived the usual tax of 100 guilders. With a certificate of admission dated November 24, 1781, Dittmer was accepted in Vienna as a member of the Freemason lodge Zur krönten Hofnung and since December 1782 has also been an honorary member of the Regensburg lodge Die Growing to the 3 Bowls .

In December 1781, Dittmer acquired an old patrician house on the north side of Haidplatz, east of the patrician castle Goldenes Kreuz , on the corner of Weingasse, which was then owned by the Erlbeck family and whose tower had collapsed in 1742. Dittmer had the medieval building rebuilt in a representative manner in accordance with his needs in the early classical style. Accordingly, Dittmer now appeared self-confident, had his four-horse carriages ride a torchbearer, organized princely dinners and lavish parties with gondola rides in his garden palace, built in 1795/7 and which has been called Villa Lauser since 1903 . He wanted to show that he had achieved something as a wholesale merchant and that he had found recognition as a bourgeois in the world of the nobles and high-ranking military figures who liked to stay overnight in his palace.

In 1788 his wife Beata Barbara died, with whom he had been married since 1758 and had ten children, of whom only two sons and two daughters reached an old age. The two sons Heinrich Adolph and Johann Georg Friedrich died in 1795. The older daughter Sybilla Elisabeth (* 1762, † 1798) married her father's cousin in 1789, the banker Friedrich Manthey († March 1831), who was also from Pomerania.

The younger daughter Friederike Amalie (* 1772, † 1806) married the businessman Carl Christian Thon († Aug. 1831) in 1795. From this marriage comes the best-known member of the Thon-Dittmer family, who later became mayor Gottlieb von Thon-Dittmer (* 1802, † 1853). His older sister Juliane (* 1799, † 1871), called Julie , ran the household after her mother's death, married her brother's college friend, the lawyer and fraternity member Adolf von Zerzog, and inherited the estate in 1831 after the death of her father Carl Christian Thon Etterzhausen , which her grandfather Georg Friedrich von Dittmer had acquired in 1799 and bequeathed to her father.

Together with his two sons-in-law, Georg Friedrich von Dittmer was raised to the status of imperial baron in 1800. In 1801 he made his will, in which he also considered his nieces in Kammin. In addition to money, he left the Regensburg family his real estate, including six warehouses in the city. In 1803 Georg Friedrich von Dittmer left the trading company he had founded in favor of his sons-in-law to live in Regensburg as a private person in his garden palace.

Although the salt trading business with Bavaria and the trade in Austrian mining products had almost collapsed after the termination of the contracts after 1798, the structural expansion of the city palace, which had existed since 1785, began in 1808 while Georg Friedrich von Dittmer was still alive. The neighboring medieval patrician house, the so-called Alkofersche Haus on the corner of Baumhackergasse, was bought up in 1808 and partially demolished so that the remaining building could be attached to the existing house. Under the direction of the builder Emanuel d'Herigoyen , both houses were combined behind a classicist facade in such a way that the building of today's Thon-Dittmer-Palais was created.

In September 1811 Georg Friedrich von Dittmer died at the age of 85, still mentally active, of pneumonia. He was buried in the Lazarus cemetery in the city ​​park , which existed until the beginning of the 19th century. After son-in-law Mantey-Dittmer left the joint company in 1818, the palace only bore the name of the other son-in-law Thon-Dittmer-Palais .

literature

• German Biographical Encyclopedia . 2nd edition ( Rudolf Vierhaus , ed.), Volume 2, Saur, Munich 2005, p. 650.
• Funeral speeches, dedicated to the memory of honor of the Hochwohlgebohrnen Lord, Georg Friedrich Freiherrn von Dittmer, Royal Bavarian Court Chamber Council and Lord of Etterzhausen and Pettendorf , Regensburg, 1811; (Digital scan)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 37 ff .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 47-53 .
3. ↑ Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 57-67 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 23-32, 45 ff .
5. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 309 f .

Web links

• On the history of the Thon-Dittmer-Palais