Gottschalk Mayer

Gottschalk Moses Elias Mayer (born April 5, 1761 in Mannheim ; † November 19, 1835 there ) was court factor in the Palatinate electoral palace in Mannheim (1779–1835), owner and founder of the company “Gebr. Mayer Zigarrenfabriken ”(mentioned in 1787), master of Gut Ellerstadt , Bad Dürkheim district (from 1797) and from 1806 head of the Israelite community in Mannheim.

family

Gottschalk Mayer was the son of the Mannheim head court factor Elias Mayer from Stuttgart and Judle Geseke.

After his engagement in 1782 in Fulda , Hesse , he married Eva Lehmann, the daughter of the Dresden businessman Lehmann Josef Nathan and his wife Bele, in the summer of 1783 (probably in Dresden ). His marriage was initiated by the ambassador of the Electorate of the Palatinate in Dresden, Theodor Freiherr von Hallberg-Broich , and led to a meeting in Fulda, where the future bride and groom Gottschalk and Eva celebrated their engagement in the presence of their parents. According to reports from his son Julius Lehmann, 21-year-old Gottschalk Mayer was, in his own words, very young and inexperienced when he got engaged.

His grandson was the well-known conductor Hermann Levi (1839–1900).

Life

In 1779, at the age of 18, Gottschalk Mayer was appointed electoral Palatinate court factor by Elector Karl Theodor " in consideration of the loyalty and zeal shown by his father, Our Oberhofaktor Mayer Elias " with a "temporary" annual salary of 200 guilders . Later, in 1818, he is said to have been the only court factor resident in Mannheim. He kept the title of "Palatinate Court Factor" until his death in 1835, although Mannheim belonged to Baden from 1803 onwards.

The brothers Gottschalk and Ignaz Mayer ran the company “Gebr. Mayer Zigarrenfabriken ”initially together until Ignaz moved to Munich in 1805, where he died in 1824. Already in the war year 1787 this company took over another important delivery for the Palatinate troops - despite the fatherly agreement with the elector not to conduct any more government business. On the intervention of the father, however, this business was immediately reversed and Ignaz's later father-in-law Selig Leimen took over this government business. The "Gebr. Mayer Zigarrenfabriken ”but, in accordance with the promise made by the Elector to their father at the time, renounced further government business and instead switched to credit business.

From traders to bankers, they bought the Ellerstadt estate in the district of Neustadt near Bad Dürkheim from the indebted Franz Graf von Sickingen in 1797, grew wine there and also became merchants and liqueur manufacturers and traders. Gottschalk's son Julius Lehmann called his father a “cuff farmer” in his memoirs - because of his “ agrarian spleens ” despite the lack of any practical experience.

Due to the effects of the French Revolution and the consequences of the war, some regional ruling houses ran into financial difficulties, such as B. Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg (1724–1807), to whom Gottschalk Mayer granted generous loans without any collateral. Both debtors showed their appreciation by not only repaying their debts after the peace agreement, but also guaranteeing a pension payment until the end of his life. According to a decree of 1790, Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria paid 300 guilders a year.

Gottschalk's brother Ignaz left the company together in 1805 and moved to Munich to get married there.

Unlike his father, who was no longer influenced by court society, he belonged to the emerging Jewish economic bourgeoisie. This tried to get closer to the Christian business bourgeoisie, to gain more influence in the city, but above all to campaign for the rights of the Jewish community. From 1806 Mayer was head of the Jewish community and in 1809, together with Wolf Ladenburg , the founder of the Ladenburg bank , one of five Mannheim representatives at the first State Deputy Assembly of Baden Jews in Karlsruhe .

In the years after the peace treaty, a legal dispute due to a translation and formal error almost went so far that Gottschalk Mayer was in danger of losing all of his property if he had not finally got his rights at the upper tribunal in 1813 and the process was finally concluded in 1827 would have been.

See also

• His grandfather Elias Hayum (Mayer) (1709–1766), court and militia factor in Mannheim
• His descendant Emil Mayer (1848–1910), tobacco manufacturer and member of parliament from Baden, and his son Max Ernst Mayer (1875–1923), criminal lawyer and legal philosopher.
• Jewish life in Mannheim

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Britta Wassmuth: In the field of tension between court, city and Jewish community ... , p. 227
2. ^ Britta Waßmuth: Court Jews: Economy and interculturality: the Jewish business elite in the 18th century . Ed .: Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg. Christians Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 978-3-7672-1410-1 , p. 273 .

literature

• Sigismund von Dobschütz: The ancestors of Elisabeth Goldschmidt from Kassel and Mannheim . In: "Hessische Familienkunde" (HFK), edited by the Working Group of Family Studies Societies in Hessen, Vol. 24, Issue 4 (1998), ISSN  0018-1064 , pp. 161f.
  • New publication with additions and corrections: "Maajan - The Source", Swiss Association for Jewish Genealogy, Issue 76, Zurich 2005, ISSN  1011-4009 .
• Britta Wassmuth: In the field of tension between court, city and Jewish community: Social relationships and change in mentality among court Jews in the Palatinate residence city of Mannheim at the exit of the Ancien Régime . 1st edition. pro MESSAGE, 2005, ISBN 978-3-934845-30-5 .
• Britta Waßmuth: Court Jews: Economy and interculturality: the Jewish business elite in the 18th century . Ed .: Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg. Christians Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 978-3-7672-1410-1 , p. 263-273 .