Johann Ernst Friedrich Westphalen

Johann Ernst Friedrich Westphalen (born August 11, 1757 in Hamburg ; † September 3, 1833 there ) was a German merchant from Hamburg, councilor , senator and 1800-1801 president of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce .

Family and work

Johann Ernst Friedrich Westphalen was the son of Christoph Dietrich Westphalen (1728–1814), teacher and master scribe at the St.Petri School in Hamburg and his wife Gertrud Elisabeth Kolthoff (1732–1775). On August 4, 1785, he married the famous Hamburg poet and writer Engel Christine Westphalen (1758–1840), b. von Axen, daughter of Jacob von Ax (1710–1773), porcelain dealer and citizen captain in Hamburg and his wife Katharina Maria Albers (1725–1791). Together they had five children, but only one son and one daughter survived. Her daughter Lydia Amalie (1794–1855) married the Russian colonel and from 1822 city commandant of Hamburg, Carl Joseph Johann von Stephani (1782–1842).

Westphalen founded the trading company Rücker und Westphalen in 1785 with his friend Martin Albert Rücker (1758–1824). From 1806 to 1819 Johann Christoph Friedrich Rist (1780–1822) was one of the shareholders. The office was initially located at the address Huxter 98 (today part of Ost-West-Straße, section Willy-Brandt-Straße ), but before 1802 it was moved to Große Reichenstraße 42, where Westphalen also had his residence. Together with his wife, he hosted many prominent French refugees during the French Revolution . a. Louis Philippe of Orléans , who later became King of France, and Charles-François Dumouriez belonged.

Volunteering and politics

He began his voluntary career, which was widespread in the Hamburg merchant class, in 1786 as an adjunct at the church council of the Hamburg main church St. Petri . In 1787 he was elected to the war commission, in 1790 commercial judge at the lower court ( lower court citizen ) and in 1792 fortification citizen, as he was responsible for the fortification of the Hanseatic city. From 1793 he held the office of orphanage provisional officer and in 1797 he became head of the poor . As early as 1796 he was elected to the Commerzdeputation and was president there from 1800 to 1801 . Subsequent to this time he worked as a banco citizen in the administration of the Hamburger Bank from 1802 to 1803 , from 1803 to 1804 as an admiralty citizen and from 1804 was a senior member of the Council of the Sixties . On February 6, 1809, Westphalen was finally elected to the City Council of Hamburg, in the midst of the French occupation (1806 to 1814). Westphalen's publication of Hamburg's deepest humiliation in the last few years (Hoffmann'sche Buchhandlung, Hamburg 1814), which he wrote anonymously ("from a Hamburger") and in which he came to the later often cited assessment of the occupation, became famous cost Hamburg 75 million French francs between 1809 and 1814 alone. After the liberation of Hamburg, Westphalen remained a member of the council until his death in 1833, where he held important offices. As a senator, he last acted as chairman of the deputations for the acceptance of citizens, for the order of bread and as president of the large college for the poor. With the Senate Syndicus Wilhelm Amsinck at his side, he also heads the commission for the formation of the draft general budget , acted under police and regulatory law together with the Senate Syndicus and later Mayor David Schlueter (1758–1844) as sovereign in the suburbs of St. Georg and Hamburger Berg and worked as a member in the deputations for the broker order, shipping and trade, church affairs and the debt administration. Together with his son-in-law von Stephani, he was also a member of the Citizens' Military Commission.

Web links

• CV at www.hamburgerpersönlichkeit.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ pedigree on Geneanet.org
2. ↑ Protocol of the inheritance dispute in Staats- und Gelehre-Zeitung 1822, No. 105, p. 57
3. ^ Hamburg address book from 1802, p. 215
4. ↑ Max Mendheim: Westphalen, Engel Christine. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 217 f.
5. ↑ JC Köster (Ed.): Hamburgischer Staats-Kalender auf das 1833, pp. 51, 56, 60, 67, 72-74, 76f., 81, 90f.