Georg Heinrich Sieveking

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Painting by Martin Ferdinand Quadal; 1796

Georg Heinrich Sieveking (born January 28, 1751 in Hamburg ; † January 25, 1799 there ) was a Hamburg merchant and educator . Together with his friend and business partner Caspar Voght , he ran one of the largest trading houses in the Hanseatic city in the second half of the 18th century. Sieveking was an avid supporter of the Enlightenment and represented the ideals of the French Revolution . On the anniversary of the storm on the Bastille , Sieveking's initiative held a freedom festival on July 14, 1790 in Harvestehude , which attracted attention far beyond Hamburg. Only a few years before his death in 1796 Sieveking succeeded in negotiations in Paris in lifting the trade embargo imposed on Hamburg in 1793 .

Life

Origin, childhood and youth

In his father's branch of the Georg Heinrich Sievekings family from Westphalia , his grandfather Ahasver Hinrich (1668–1729) was the first to pursue the commercial profession by setting up a company specializing in the linen trade in Versmold . His son Peter Niclaes (1718–1763) followed him in the cloth trade, but went to Hamburg in 1734, where he acquired citizenship in 1747 . Only two years later he married Catharina Margaretha Büsch, the daughter of a wine merchant who had come to Hamburg from Lüneburg and whose brother Georg Heinrich Büsch had made it to the position of Hamburg Senator. Her first son, Georg Heinrich Sieveking, born in 1751, was named after him. Sieveking received mostly private lessons. The private tutor Velthusen had a great influence on him. Following the family tradition, his father intended him to be a businessman, which, however, also suited him due to his pronounced mathematical talent. Together with his one year younger brother Heinrich Christian Sieveking , Georg Heinrich was first taught by a private tutor before both of them attended Johann Georg Büsch's mathematics lectures at the Hamburg Commercial Academy from 1764 .

The trading house Voght & Sieveking

Business circular (" Circular ") dated July 1, 1793 with the announcement Voghts to withdraw from the joint company

On August 1, 1766 Sieveking entered the trading house of the Hamburg Senator Voght as an apprentice. During his apprenticeship he proved to be so capable that Voght granted him a share in the business on January 1, 1777 - together with his own son Caspar. After the senator's death in 1781, the two initially continued to run the company together, first under the name "Caspar Voght & Co.", then, from 1788, under the name "Voght und Sieveking". Up to Sieveking's fortieth birthday on January 28, 1791, Voght had shared a third of the profits with him, after which he shared half of it. On July 1, 1793 Caspar Voght finally ceded all business with the exception of the American trade to Sieveking and devoted himself to other projects.

Instead of concentrating on a specific trade, Voght and Sieveking traded a wide range of goods and on the basis of an extensive network of correspondents. The focus of their import trade was initially on the ports of the French Atlantic coast and England, but with the outbreak of the American War of Independence , the company's ships loaded with tobacco , rice and indigo arrived in the Hanseatic city from the ports of the North American east coast. Voght's saying of himself is almost proverbial today: "I was the first Hamburg merchant to get coffee from mocha, tobacco from Baltimore , coffee from Surinam , and rubber from Africa". The real engine of the company, which was operated jointly until 1793, was Georg Heinrich Sieveking. While Voght traversed all of Europe on his extensive travels, his partner Sieveking in Hamburg was largely solely responsible for handling the business. Voght himself underlined this when he wrote in a circular to all business partners from July 1793 that his friend had been the sole decision maker of the trading house for several years ("le seul gérant de notre commerce").

Sieveking and the French Revolution

Friendship circle, lodge activity

Sieveking had developed a keen interest in literature early on. Together with his childhood friends of about the same age Johann Michael Hudtwalcker and Caspar Voght, the Enlightenment writer wrote poems and prose and performed plays in the company of Hudtwalcker's sisters. Sieveking's wife Johanna Margaretha , b. Reimarus (* Hamburg November 20, 1760, † Hamburg June 12, 1832), whom he married on October 2, 1782, ran a literary salon in Hamburg , which also cultivated these ideas. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who was enthusiastically revered as the poet of the Messiah, were among the greatest role models in the Sieveking circle . Sieveking deepened the ideas of the Enlightenment as a Freemason in the Hamburg lodge “St. Georg zur verdenden Fichte ” , whose master he was elected by the chair in 1789. In a lodge speech about freedom he advocated a moderate concept of freedom as early as 1777: “Freedom is not lawlessness: Even the sublime master builder of the great universe, who is the freest of all beings, is governed by the eternal, unchangeable laws in every one of his actions of beauty, wisdom and strength, who rules order and harmony. He is free who is determined in his choice by reasonable reasons and not by external violence. Freedom in the state does not mean independence from the laws, but security from unreasonable laws and unauthorized interference by the authorities in our rights. ”Sieveking and his friends saw their spiritual ideals put into practice when the revolution broke out in France in 1789 , at least for as long as until the revolutionary idea of ​​freedom was reduced to absurdity by Robespierre's reign of terror .

In 1793 Sieveking bought together with Piter Poel and Conrad Johann Matthiessen a country estate in Neumühlen, today's Donners Park , which developed into a meeting place of great social importance. The visitors included Klopstock, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi .

The Harvestehuder Freedom Festival

While the first anniversary of the storm on the Bastille was celebrated on July 14, 1790 in Paris on the Marsfeld , a freedom festival took place on the same day in Harvestehude at the gates of Hamburg, which was initiated by Georg Heinrich Sieveking. The most prominent among the around 80 guests were Adolph Freiherr Knigge and Sieveking's youthful idol Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, painting by Maria Elisabeth Vogel

Sieveking had written an ode to the revolution for the occasion, which was performed by a choir of young girls dressed in white and adorned with revolutionary cockades . The Sieveking Ode, based on the ideals of 1789, left a deep impression. Sophie Reimarus , b. von Hennings, the second wife of the Hamburg doctor Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus , later wrote that Sieveking's song “touched a string, and everyone joined in with it”.

The festival established the political festival culture in Hamburg and caused a sensation far beyond the city's borders. The French newspapers reported on the increasing spread of revolutionary ideas abroad. Even the leader of the Girondins in Paris, Brissot , praised the festival in his Patriot Français . However, it had no concrete consequences for Hamburg's political culture. The Senate, the urban lower classes and the vast majority of the urban bourgeoisie took no notice of it. Sauveur Joseph Gandolphe, the French chargé d'affaires in Hamburg, considered it appropriate to honor the Paris events only among the French within the embassy hotel. He declined to attend, saying that "the celebration in Harvestehude could have given rise to arousal of a population who at that moment is the quietest in all of Europe".

Charitable commitment

In 1789 Sieveking argued in a paper about the Hamburg mint rate purely economically and took the view that with low wages, factories and factories could best exist. The revolution probably sensitized Sieveking to political and social issues. In a lecture given to the "Hamburg Society for the Promotion of Arts and Useful Crafts" (" Patriotic Society of 1765 "), of which he was a member, he made numerous reform proposals in 1791, which were only published in 1797. Sieveking opposed excessive luxury in meals, clothing, and funerals. He called for the establishment of a “savings fund” to help poor people in the event of illness or unemployment. He urged his wealthy fellow citizens to pay their taxes and duties honestly.

In 1785 Sieveking became provisional for the factory and prison . A year after the outbreak of the French Revolution, as the new head of the factory and penitentiary, he advocated that the inmates should also be granted human rights. Sieveking was against the right of the provisional to carry out arbitrary recordings in the penitentiary. The right of admission could not be abolished until 1805. But he succeeded in releasing ten boys from the labor and penitentiary and bringing them to Philadelphia . He also campaigned for a separate city code.

To my fellow citizens

Execution of Louis XVI. (Engraving from 1793)

After the revolution in France had become more and more radical and the French King Louis XVI. In January 1793, Sieveking came under increasing pressure in Hamburg. The reading society ("Société de Lecture") founded in 1792 by Hamburg merchants and writers around the French ambassador Lehoc, Sieveking had to dissolve as its president on December 29, 1792 under pressure from conservative forces. Sieveking was even threatened personally: strangers threw a rope into his house and painted a gallows on the door. He finally countered the accusation that he was a Jacobin in a public defense under the title To my fellow citizens , in which he vigorously denied having welcomed the king's death. He is a member of the Freemasons and the Patriotic Society, but not a Jacobin. He condemned the excesses of the revolution as "anarchy, cabale, disobedience to the law, irreligion, cruelty and murder", but did not fundamentally oppose the basic principles of the revolution, which were based on the ideas of the Enlightenment. His business partner Voght, on the other hand, went so far as to later assume the title of “baron” and to advocate restricting the freedom of the press.

As Hamburg's special envoy in Paris (1796)

Imperial War, expulsion from Le Hocs and embargo

When the First Coalition War (1792–1797) against France was officially declared an Imperial War, this had serious consequences for Hamburg's trade with France. In particular, the export of the war goods, grain and meat, was forbidden. A number of merchants - including Sieveking - tried to evade this ban by transporting their goods to Altona in Denmark and from there on ships to France. Despite the bans, the close ties between Hamburg and France, their most important trading partner by far, increasingly aroused the displeasure of Austria and its ally Prussia . In February 1793, the Lower Saxony Imperial Circle with Prussia at its head, supported by the imperial envoy Binder von Kriegelstein, demanded the expulsion of the French envoy in Hamburg, Louis-Grégoire Le Hoc . In this tense situation, Le Hoc left town voluntarily. The National Convention thereupon declared the confiscation of all Hamburg ships lying in French ports and imposed a trade embargo on the Hanseatic city. However, this embargo was lifted again through the mediation of Sieveking in 1796, as a deterioration in relations was not in the interests of France due to the economic importance of Hamburg.

Sieveking's mission in Paris

Georg Heinrich Sieveking, colored copper engraving by PM Alix, Paris

Karl Friedrich Reinhard was sent to Hamburg in June 1795 as Le Hoc's successor . Under pressure from the Reich, the Hamburg Senate had to refuse Reinhard the Agrément on January 25, 1796 . Reinhard left Hamburg on February 27, 1796 and went to Bremen. In this diplomatic crisis Sieveking should mediate because of his high reputation in Paris. He arrived in Paris on March 31, 1796. After the counter-revolutionary uprising of 13th Vendémaire (October 5, 1795) was put down by Napoleon and Paul de Barras, a period of domestic political calm returned. On April 12, 1796 Sieveking received a first audience with the Directory , but the conflict was not resolved. His plan to support France's finances by raising the exchange rate for the largely devalued assignats was not only rejected by Paris as inadequate, but also by the Hamburg Senate as impracticable. On April 27, Sieveking received 311,172 marks freely from the Hamburg Commerce Deputation, and he did not hesitate to pay them out to Barras and other decision-makers in the republic as bribes. After Sieveking's talks with the French Finance Minister Ramel in May, things finally took a favorable turn. The contract, approved by the Board of Directors on June 14, 1796, provided for the payment of a total of 13 million livres , for which Sieveking was personally liable. That same evening, Barras asked Sieveking to come and tell him: "Votre affaire est finie" (German: "Your matter is settled."). The official signing took place ten days later, and on the same day Sieveking wrote worriedly to Hamburg: “My fellow citizens will decide whether I will be the victim of my patriotism.” But his fears proved unfounded. On his return in July 1796 Sieveking was received with great honors. In his report to the assembled members of the Commerce Deputation, he declared: “With your respect, I swear, on my honor, I saved Hamburg. I dared to become poor ”.

death

Sieveking died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 25, 1799. Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote about him in a letter : "The memory of the deceased will certainly remain unforgettable with all his friends, and certainly only a few have had the happiness of being so generally and so sincerely regretted and missed."

Sieveking was buried in the family grave in the main church St. Nikolai and in 1810 transferred outside to the burial place St. Nikolai . It is not engraved on the gravestone for his widow Johanna Margaretha, as it is in the area of ​​the Sieveking family grave complex (grid square p. 25/26) in the Ohlsdorf cemetery .

The Sievekingsche trading house was continued by his widow together with the partners Jean François Bertheau (1763-1829) and Friedrich Joachim Schlueter (1753-1813), the Hanseatic envoy in France. It suffered losses due to the continental blockade in 1806, but was able to post a profit of 62,298 marks Banco again in 1807. In the following years, however, the losses increased. In 1811 the trading company went bankrupt.

Works

  • Materials on a complete and systematic right to change: with special consideration for Hamburg; submitted to thinking legal scholars and business people for examination. Promoted to print by the Hamburg Commerz Deputation. Hamburg: Treder 1792

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Unprinted sources

  • Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 622–1 Sieveking I - Archives on honorary posts, household and assets: Memories of Johann Michael Hudtwalcker (Sieveking's childhood friend), correspondence - The documents are subject to special approval.
  • Admiralty customs and convoy money revenue books. Hamburg State Archives, 371-2 Admiralty College, F 6, Volumes 1–50 - The customs registers from the years 1733–1798 are the most important source of Hamburg's trade statistics from the 18th century. Since the names of the importers were also recorded in the registers, an approximate profile of the extensive goods trade of the Voght & Sieveking trading house can be obtained from them.

Printed sources

  • Johann Georg Büsch: In memory of my friends Dorner and Sieveking. Bachmann & Gundermann, Hamburg 1799. online , SUB Hamburg
  • Charlotte Schoell-Glass (ed.): Caspar Voght: Life story. Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1344-3 . Autobiography with a focus on Voght's travels through Europe. Little can be learned about the joint trading company with Sieveking, which, however, underscores Voght's lack of interest in business matters.
  • Georg Heinrich Sieveking: To my fellow citizens. Hamburg 1793. Fifteen-page defense by Sieveking, who three years after his "freedom festival" was exposed to the accusation of his fellow citizens that he was a Jacobin and had decided about the execution of Louis XVI. pleased.

literature

  • Dirk Brietzke :  Sieveking, Georg Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 387-389 ( digitized version ).
  • Hans-Werner Engels : Everything was possible! The start of a new Europe - Hamburg's citizens celebrate the French Revolution. In: Die Zeit , 29, 11 July, 2002, p. 80.
  • Walter Grab : North German Jacobins. Democratic aspirations at the time of the French Revolution (= Hamburg Studies on Modern History. 8, ISSN  0440-1743 ). European publishing company, Frankfurt am Main 1967.
  • Arno Herzig : Between Empire and Revolution: Hamburg in the 1790s. In: Arno Herzig, Inge Stephan, Hans G. Winter (eds.): “You and not we”. The French Revolution and its effect on Northern Germany and the Reich. Volume 1: The French Revolution and its effect on Northern Germany. Dölling u. Galitz, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-926174-13-7 , pp. 153-176, (good overview article on the political situation in Hamburg in the years after the French Revolution).
  • Franklin Kopitzsch : A song for poor devils. Georg Heinrich Sieveking, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the French Revolution. In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): Peace for the world theater. Goethe - a participant, observer and mediator between world and theater, politics and history. Max Wegner on his 80th birthday. Hamburger Museumsverein, Hamburg 1982, DNB 830519173 , pp. 88-98.
  • Franklin Kopitzsch: Basic features of a social history of the Enlightenment in Hamburg and Altona (= contributions to the history of Hamburg. Vol. 21). 2nd, supplemented edition. Association for Hamburg History, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-923356-36-6 (also: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1982).
  • Franklin Kopitzsch: Sieveking, Georg Heinrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 291-293 .
  • Burghart Schmidt : Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813) (= contributions to the history of Hamburg. Vol. 55 = publications from the State Archives of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Vol. 15). 2 volumes. Association for Hamburg History, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-923356-87-0 .
  • Georg Herman Sieveking: From the family history de Chapeaurouge and Sieveking 1794–1806. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History . Vol. 12, 1908, pp. 207-234, ( digitized version ).
  • Heinrich Sieveking : Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Curtius, Berlin 1913, (only available modern biography of Sieveking).
  • Heinrich Sieveking: The trading house Voght and Sieveking. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 17, 1912, pp. 54–128, ( digitized version ; text identical to the chapter of the same name in Heinrich Sieveking's monograph published in 1913).
  • Wilhelm Sillem:  Sieveking, Georg Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 220-224.
  • Adolf Wohlwill : Reinhard as the French envoy in Hamburg and the efforts of the Hanseatic cities to be neutral in the years 1795–1797. In: Hansische Geschichtsblätter . No. 2, 1875, pp. 53-121, ( digitized ).

Web links

Commons : Georg Heinrich Sieveking  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, p. 5.
  2. ^ Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, p. 6.
  3. ↑ Heinrich Sieveking: The trading house Voght and Sieveking. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 17, 1912, pp. 54–128, here p. 64.
  4. ↑ Heinrich Sieveking: The trading house Voght and Sieveking. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 17, 1912, pp. 54–128, here p. 87.
  5. ^ Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, p. 8f.
  6. ^ Franklin Kopitzsch: Basics of a social history of the Enlightenment in Hamburg and Altona. 2nd, supplemented edition. Hamburg 1990, p. 396.
  7. ↑ Heinrich Sieveking: The trading house Voght and Sieveking. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 17, 1912, pp. 54–128, here p. 88.
  8. Jump up ↑ Die Zeit , July 11, 2002, Zeitllauf.
  9. ^ Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, p. 27.
  10. ^ Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, p. 22.
  11. ^ Franklin Kopitzsch: Basics of a social history of the Enlightenment in Hamburg and Altona. 2nd, supplemented edition. Hamburg 1990, pp. 206, 394, 596; Wilhelm Sillem: Conrad Johann Matthiessen. In: Mitteilungen des Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte Vol. 5, 14/1891, pp. 303–312 ( digitized version )
  12. ^ Quote from Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789–1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 114.
  13. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 114.
  14. ↑ Arno Herzig: Between Empire and Revolution: Hamburg in the 1790s. In: Arno Herzig, Inge Stephan, Hans G. Winter (eds.): “You and not we”. Volume 1, Hamburg 1989, pp. 153-176, here p. 158.
  15. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 114.
  16. ↑ The quote: Adolf Wohlwill: Modern history of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. In particular from 1789 to 1815 (= general history of states. Dept. 3: German national histories. 10). Perthes, Gotha 1914, p. 88.
  17. ↑ On this section Dirk Brietzke: Sieveking, Georg Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24 (2010), pp. 387-389. Franklin Kopitzsch: A song for poor devils. Georg Heinrich Sieveking, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the French Revolution. In: Jörgen Bracker (Hrsg.): Peace for the world theater. Goethe - a participant, observer and mediator between world and theater, politics and history. Hamburg 1982, pp. 88-98.
  18. ^ Franklin Kopitzsch: Basics of a social history of the Enlightenment in Hamburg and Altona. 2nd, supplemented edition. Hamburg 1990, p. 575f.
  19. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 120.
  20. ↑ Georg Heinrich Sieveking: To my fellow citizens. Hamburg 1793, pp. 5-11. Summary by Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, pp. 158-163.
  21. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, pp. 134, 145.
  22. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 143.
  23. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 146.
  24. ^ Georg Herman Sieveking: From the family history de Chapeaurouge and Sieveking 1794–1806. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 12, 1908, pp. 207–234, here p. 216. On the Sieveking mission: Adolf Wohlwill: Modern history of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. In particular from 1789 to 1815 (= general history of states. Dept. 3: German national histories. 10). Perthes, Gotha 1914, pp. 157-161; Heinrich Sieveking: Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Life picture of a Hamburg merchant from the age of the French Revolution. Berlin 1913, pp. 198-269.
  25. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 147.
  26. ↑ Sievekings final report to the Commerzdeputaion of July 21, 1796. In: Documents on the history of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce. Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, Hamburg 1965, pp. 68–70.
  27. ^ Gustav Poel: Pictures from Karl Sieveking's Life 1787–1847. Hamburg 1887, p. 21.
  28. ↑ Eberhard Kellers: Burial grove and crypt. The tombs of the upper class in the old Hamburg cemeteries. Hamburg 1997, p. 127, column Friedrich Sieveking
  29. ↑ Heinrich Sieveking: The trading house Voght and Sieveking. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 17, 1912, pp. 54–128, here p. 110.
  30. ^ Burghart Schmidt: Hamburg in the age of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1789-1813). Part 1, Hamburg 1998, p. 277.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on June 15, 2005 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Sieveking, Georg Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hamburg merchant and scout
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 1799
Place of death Hamburg