Jakob Mannheimer

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Jakob Mannheimer (* 1724 near Darmstadt ; † 1803 ) was a banker in Frankfurt am Main and financed urban planning in Schwäbisch Hall , Ulm and Heilbronn in the late 18th century . The founding of several banks in southwest Germany can be traced back to loans granted by him.

Mannheimer's life and work

Mannheimer was born near Darmstadt in 1724 . He had Jewish ancestors who, however, converted to Christianity starting with his grandfather Samuel Mannheimer, and who were cattle dealers and moneylenders. Little is known about his youth and apprenticeship years. He stepped out of the shadows of history for the first time in 1748 when he called for the establishment of a craftsmen's society (aid association) in a lecture before the Craftsmen's Day in Frankfurt. Mannheimer's ideas were revolutionary for the time, but were not yet heard.

The idea of ​​the partnership would, however, occupy him again later. Shortly afterwards he married Agnes, geb. Kronstein, who brought a lot of money into the marriage. In 1756 he is named as the owner of a large estate in Frankfurt, a year later he already has rights to various farms as far as the southern Odenwald , which he held as pledge for money lent. Through these rights he was confronted with the harshness of the deposit system that had existed since the Middle Ages, which made the use of the deposit dependent on the skill of the donor. Mannheimer therefore devised the idea of ​​interest on land loans based on expected income from additional benefits and coined the term "land society" for this principle. He is said to have been in contact with the Kaskel banking family and founded a private bank around 1765 . His interest ideas were spread through pamphlets and lectures and met with open ears. The first community to borrow money from Mannheimer was Görsroth in the Taunus. Manheimer received part of the mark as a pledge, but did not exercise these rights and instead secured a quarter of the expected additional income for 20 years after the planned structural improvement measures.

Municipalities and mansions in Hesse and the Electoral Palatinate were rather hostile to Mannheimer's business practices, so that after the Görsrother contract he was no longer able to do business in this region. Elector Karl Theodor stated that Mannheimer's business idea was “a good deal of the will”, but could not offer any. After 1767, however, he succeeded in several stages in concluding a general contract with the Swabian District, which was able to make friends with the fact that private financing partners were now also included in the alliance that also provided mutual financial aid. Mannheimer became the financier for the cities of Schwäbisch Hall, Ulm and Heilbronn until 1779, each of which paid part of the expected additional income as long-term interest after taking out a loan. The Napoleonic Wars put a heavy strain on Mannheimer's budget and he died in the middle of this tragic period. His grandson August Mannheimer continued the private bank after his death and benefited from the early industrialization after overcoming the famine years of 1816/17 . Starting in 1835, August Mannheimer sold assets and liabilities to various bankers, including Gutmann , Heilbronner Gumbel and others, whose banking houses mostly went up as significant shares in the cooperative banks and Raiffeisen banks in the 1850s .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ KA LRA Ravensburg No. 17003 ff.