Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann

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Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, ca.1762

Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann (born July 13, 1724 in Demmin ; † February 16, 1782 in Copenhagen ) was a German - Danish merchant and slave trader and owner who came to great wealth. The Schimmelmann family was raised to the Danish count status; his eldest son Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann became Danish Minister of Finance.

Origin and family

Schimmelmann was the son of the Demmin merchant and (later) councilor Diedrich Jacob Schimmelmann (1683–1743) and Esther Elisabeth Ludendorff (1684–1752) and brother of the pastor Jacob Schimmelmann .

Caroline von Schimmelmann, ca.1762

In 1747 he married Caroline Tugendreich von Friedeborn (1730–1795), with whom he had seven children, five of whom survived:

Descendants from the Holstein-Danish aristocratic family include the former CEO of Postbank AG Wulf von Schimmelmann and the general and peace researcher Wolf Graf Baudissin .

Act

Merchant, slave trader and slave owner

After a few failures, he began his career as a businessman in Dresden and tenant of the Generalaccise in Electoral Saxony . During the Seven Years' War Schimmelmann was the grain supplier for the Prussian army. He bought the stocks of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Meissen, which had been confiscated by Prussia , from Friedrich II for 120,000 thalers . After the Battle of Kolin in 1757, he had the goods brought to Hamburg via Magdeburg. With a spectacular auction in July 1758 he made a significant profit and opened a trading house in Hamburg . In 1761 he tried to compete with the state-sponsored Prussian coin monopoly Ephraim and Itzig to earn inferior war money in the coin of Rethwisch by minting .

Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, with a portrait of his wife and an African Moor , ca.1773

From the Danish state, which was stuck in an economic and trade crisis in the 1760s, he bought four large cotton and sugar cane plantations in the Danish West Indies (now the American Virgin Islands in the Caribbean) at a reasonable price. These included the La Grande Princesse plantations near Christiansted and La Grange in Frederiksted on Saint Croix, as well as a sugar refinery in Copenhagen- Christianshavn . This brought him into possession of around 400 to 500 slaves , the number of which he increased to around 1,000 over the next twenty years. The family thus had more slaves than any other Danish plantation owner. Soon afterwards he participated in the Atlantic triangle trade , with which he made a large part of his fortune; Schimmelmann was soon considered the richest man in Europe. He owned 14 ships, which for the time was a significant concentration in the hands of a private shipowner. Schimmelmann exported calico , weapons and alcohol from his factories in Ahrensburg and Wandsbek ( Duchy of Holstein ) via Hamburg to the west coast of Africa. In return, he acquired African slaves who were shipped to the European colonies in North America and the Caribbean. So he became Denmark's largest slave trader. The raw materials grown in the Caribbean were in turn shipped to Hamburg, Altona or Flensburg in Denmark (rum production), where they were processed into goods for export to Africa. He also owned a rifle factory in Hellebæk . In his will he left his five surviving children the profit from his Caribbean plantations, annually (at least) 64,000 Reichstaler .

Politician and adviser

1761 he joined as commercial director and ambassador to the Hanseatic cities in Danish services. In the same year he acquired Lindenborg Castle near Aalborg in North Jutland. In December 1762, a royal advisory body for tax and finance issues was established, to which Schimmelmann belonged until his death. In the spring of 1774 he took over the chairmanship of a canal commission that was supposed to operate the construction of the Eider Canal .

During the government of Johann Friedrich Struensee , Schimmelmann was one of his most important supporters. In the finance commission, he and Struensee's brother Carl August planned measures to consolidate the state finances. A number lottery was introduced in Copenhagen , Altona and Wandsbek , the income from which was supposed to serve the social improvements planned by Struensee. Particularly controversial was the increase in the issue of paper money by the Copenhagen stock exchange with the simultaneous devaluation of the coins .

Rise of the family to the Danish nobility

Schimmelmann acquired in 1759 by the family of Rantzau the Schloss Ahrensburg , which remained until 1938 owned by the family. He also owned the Wandsbeck estate . In 1762 he had his master builder Carl Gottlob Horn (1734–1807), whom he had brought from Dresden and taken over into his service, build the Wandsbeker Castle and create a spacious park.

Schimmelmann received a number of awards: on April 17, 1762 he was awarded the Dannebrog Order , on November 16, 1773 the Elephant Order of Christian VII and in 1775 the Grand Cross of the Dannebrog Order. Schimmelmann was raised to the Danish baron on April 17, 1762, and to the Danish count status on April 9, 1779. His full name was Heinrich Carl Graf von Schimmelmann, Graf zu Lindenborg, Herr auf Ahrensburg and Wandsbek.

The important role that Schimmelmann won for Denmark's financial affairs was the basis for the rise of his son Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann to the position of Danish finance minister. However, part of the family's fortune was lost in the national bankruptcy of 1813 .

Heinrich von Schimmelmann managed to win spouses from noble families for his children. So he bought Gut Knoop from the impoverished Baudissin family in order to leave it to his daughter Caroline as a dowry when she married Heinrich Friedrich Graf von Baudissin. His daughter Julia married Friedrich Karl von Reventlow , his son Friedrich Joseph (* 1754 in Dresden, † 1800 in Ahrensburg) Ernestine, the daughter of the Pinneberger Drosten Hans von Ahlefeldt .

Between 1773 and 1787, his nephew Henrik Ludvig Ernst von Schimmelmann was Governor-General of the Danish West Indies , today's American Virgin Islands .

Former Schimmelmann memorial in Hamburg-Wandsbek

The Schimmelmann bust, inaugurated on September 10, 2006 at Wandsbeker Markt, was dismantled on August 15, 2008.
The Schimmelmann bust that was poured over with red paint in protest against the tribute to the slave trader.

In Hamburg-Wandsbek opposite the Wandsbek town hall in a newly created garden there was next to busts of Tycho Brahe and Heinrich Rantzau from September 12, 2006 to mid-2008, a Schimmelmann bust. After protests by human rights groups, the GAL and SPD parliamentary groups, in the district assembly, and the bust was repeatedly smeared with paint by strangers, the Hamburg-Wandsbek district assembly decided unanimously on May 8, 2008 to have the memorial removed again, which was also brief then happened.

literature

  • Some news from the life of Heinrich Carl Count von Schimmelmann, who died on February 16, 1782…. In: Carl Renatus Hausen : Historical Portefeuille. To know the present and the past. 1st year, 1st volume Vienna [u. a.] 1782, p. 474ff ( digitized version ).
  • Gesellschaft Rheinischer Gelehrter (Ed.): New Rheinisches Conversations-Lexicon or encyclopedic concise dictionary for educated classes. Volume 10: Rhy-Spenf. 3rd edition. Louis Bruere, Cologne 1835. pp. 526-527 ( digitized version ).
  • Christian Degn: The Schimmelmanns in the Atlantic triangular trade. Profit and conscience. 3rd, unchanged. Aufl. Neumünster 2000. ISBN 3-529-06148-4 .
  • Heinrich Handelmann :  Schimmelmann, Heinrich Carl Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 269-271.
  • Sebastian Husen: Schimmelmann, Carl Heinrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 2 . Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 370-372 .
  • Martin Krieger: Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann. In: Jürgen Zimmerer (Ed.): No place in the sun. Places of remembrance of German colonial history. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2013. ISBN 978-3-593-39811-2 , pp. 311-322.
  • Erich Maletzke: Schimmelmann. Treasurer of the King. A documentary novel. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2009. ISBN 978-3-529-06125-7 .

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Süddeutsche-Zeitung of January 25, 2007 More time for the Bahamas.
  2. ↑ Historical Working Group Ahrensburg - Descendants of Schimmelmann ( Memento from December 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ The Family of Carl von Baudissin
  4. ↑ Stefan Winkle : "Schimmelmann and Son Company". The Danish slave trade . In: Hamburger Ärzteblatt H. 12/2003, pp. 530-537; P. 530
  5. ^ Konrad Schneider: On the money trade in Hamburg at the time of the Seven Years' War. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 69 (1983); 62-82
  6. ↑ La Grande Princesse plantation on Saint Croix
  7. ↑ La Grange Plantation 1650-2009
  8. ↑ Stefan Winkle : "Schimmelmann and Son Company". The Danish slave trade . In: Hamburger Ärzteblatt H. 12/2003, pp. 530-537; P. 534.
  9. ^ Gottfried Heinrich Handelmann:  Schimmelmann, Heinrich Carl Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 269-271 .; P. 270
  10. ↑ Johann Heinrich Friedrich Berlien: The Elephant Order and its knights , Perlingsche Officin, Copenhagen, 1846, p 108, No. 299, (. Online )
  11. ↑ Kaspar Friedrich Gottschalck : Almanach der Ritter-Orden , 2nd department, Goeschen, Leipzig, 1818, p. 13, ( online )
  12. ^ Gottfried Heinrich Handelmann:  Schimmelmann, Heinrich Carl Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 269-271 .; P. 271
  13. ^ The new Schimmelmann monument at the Wandsbeck town hall.
  14. ↑ Schimmelmann bust comes away , unanimous decision to remove | Hamburger Abendblatt from May 10, 2008 dispute over the Schimmelmann monument
predecessor Office successor
Christian August by Johnn Danish envoy to the Hanseatic cities
1761–1781 		Friedrich Josef von Schimmelmann
personal data
SURNAME Schimmelmann, Heinrich Carl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schimmelmann, Heinrich Karl von; Schimmelmann, Heinrich Carl Graf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Danish politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1724
PLACE OF BIRTH Demmin
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1782
Place of death Copenhagen