Georg Steitz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Steitz (born January 28, 1756 in Frankfurt am Main , † July 18, 1819 in Wiesbaden ) was a politician of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt, the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt and the Free City of Frankfurt , in the latter one year head of state in the office of senior mayor .

Family, life and work

Georg Steitz comes from the old Hessian family Steitz , which begins its documented line of roots in 1412 with the merchant Henne Steitz ( Stytz ) in Butzbach . According to the family legend , the first bearer of the family name came from Bohemia and was Hussite .

Georg came from the Frankfurt House of the House . This goes back to the founder of the Stockstadt branch , the Zentgrafen and Amtskeller Antonius Steitz. His son, pastor Heinrich Steitz, was the founder of the Pfungstadt branch of the Steitz family and ancestor of Georg Steitz. His family brought forth well-known Frankfurt personalities, including some bankers and senators .

The family is still above Luckel Steitz ( Stytz ), a daughter of Henne Steitz in ancestral community with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the noble family Heydwolff belonging to the Althessian knighthood .

Like his father, Georg Steitz was a jeweler . In 1792 he became a member of the Council of the Free Imperial City. His political activity fell from the beginning at an extremely difficult time. On October 22nd of the same year the city was occupied by the French under General Custine in the course of the First Coalition War and given a contribution of 2 million guilders , and on December 2nd it was recaptured by Prussian and Hessian troops with great losses.

Four years later, on 13/14 July 1796, French troops under General Kléber bombed the city held by the Austrians and finally occupied it. The occupiers again demanded a substantial contribution of 6 million Swiss francs . To ensure payment, several councilors, among them Steitz and the multiple mayor Adolph Carl von Humbracht , were taken hostage to France.

In 1806 the Free Imperial City lost its centuries-old independence and was incorporated into the Principality of Aschaffenburg (from 1810 Grand Duchy of Frankfurt ) in the Confederation of the Rhine . Prince Karl Theodor von Dalberg appointed Georg Steitz to the Secret Finance Council with responsibility for the abbeys and monasteries expropriated in 1803 . In 1810, Dalberg, who had risen to become Grand Duke, appointed Steitz to the Council of State of the short-lived Grand Duchy. After operated by Steitz dismissal of the unhappy perceived Finance Minister Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust former was entrusted with the management of the Treasury, where the Grand Duke held the ministerial post formally itself. There was a trusting and friendly relationship between Dalberg and Steitz.

It is thanks to Steitz 'activity in the Grand Ducal Ministry of Finance that the city of Frankfurt was spared the financial grasp of the state. In addition to his state activities, Steitz was also head of the Frankfurt accounting department , i.e. custodian of the city treasury. After Dalberg's fall in 1813, the Governor General of the Grand Duchy, Prince Philipp von Homburg , appointed Steitz to the Board of Directors.

The Congress of Vienna restored the sovereignty of the city of Frankfurt in 1815. The Free City of Frankfurt became one of four city republics in the German Confederation . Instead of the previous council, a senate now directed the fortunes of the city. Steitz became a member of the Senate, but initially had to argue on his own behalf, as the city refused to accept the pension , which Steitz was entitled to, as a grand ducal official. Nevertheless, he devoted himself to shaping the future of the city and was a member of the Thirteeners Committee instrumental in bringing about the free municipal constitution , which came into force in 1816 constitution supplement acts involved.

In 1818, Steitz held the highest office in the city-state, which was assigned for a calendar year, that of the senior mayor . Six months after the end of his term in office, he died at the age of 63 during a cure in Wiesbaden.

In addition to his political activities, Georg Steitz devoted himself to researching the history of Frankfurt am Main . His nephew, the Frankfurt Senator Johann Gerhard Christian Thomas , administered his estate ; today it is in the Institute for Urban History .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ludwig Clemm : Contributions to the Butzbach family history of the 14th to 16th centuries - Steitz. In: Hessische Familiengeschichtliche Vereinigung (Hrsg.): Messages of the Hessische Familiengeschichtliche Vereinigung . tape 5 , issue 4, January 1939, ISSN  0172-1860 , p. 260-264 .
  2. ^ Hermann Goebel: Steitz family from Butzbach . In: Working group of the family history societies in Hessen (Hrsg.): Hessische Familienkunde . tape 3 , issue 9, March 1956, ISSN  0018-1064 , p. 455 .
  3. ^ Hermann Goebel: Steitz family from Butzbach . In: Working group of the family history societies in Hessen (Hrsg.): Hessische Familienkunde . tape 3 , issue 9, March 1956, ISSN  0018-1064 , p. 460 .
  4. ↑ August Georg Eduard Steitz: The State Councilor Georg Steitz and the Prince Primate Karl von Dalberg - a sheet from Frankfurt's history in the beginning of the XIX. Century with documented enclosures . New year's paper of the Association for History and Archeology in Frankfurt a. M. Frankfurt am Main 1869, I. History, biographical sketch. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ To the Steitz family . In: Working group of the family history societies in Hessen (Hrsg.): Hessische Familienkunde . tape 3 , issue 10, June 1956, ISSN  0018-1064 , p. 566-567 .
  6. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility . Volume II. Noble Houses B. - Volume 12 of the entire series. Starke Verlag , 1956, ISSN  0431-1302 , p. 137 .
personal data
SURNAME Steitz, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, Mayor of Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1756
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1819
Place of death Wiesbaden