Johann Simon Habel

Johann Simon Habel (born November 3, 1752 in Hachtel near Rothenburg / Tauber , † July 9, 1826 in Berlin ) was a German wine merchant .

family

Johann Simon Habel was a son of Johann Bartholomäus Habel (1723-1801) and a woman named Anna Eva (1728-1884) (last name unknown).

Habel's first marriage was Cath. Margaretha Kroh, who died in 1789. From this marriage came three sons and two daughters, including Johann Simon Heinrich (1782–1829), who was also a wine merchant.

In his second marriage, Habel married a woman named Maria Magdalena († 1814) in Berlin in 1789. Her father was the Strasbourg merchant Johann Franz Steinrück. From this marriage came a son and a daughter.

Live and act

The Habel family's wine tavern around 1912

Habel learned the craft of brewing beer and moved to Berlin as a cooperage at a young age . Together with his brother Johann Georg (1763-1811) he opened a wine wholesaler there in 1779. He bought a plot of land on Unter den Linden 30 for the company's headquarters. He himself worked for the king's winery for 42 years and from 1797 as its cellar master . Thanks to his skills as a cellar master and the commercial talent of his brother, the inn flourished within a short time. Six subsequent generations, including Habel's grandson Heinrich (1809–1866), great-grandson Heinrich Simon Carl (1837–1887) and great-great-grandson Wilhelm Simon Heinrich (1873–1945) continued to own the wine tavern. They expanded the house, which was known to be simple but elegant, and rebuilt it several times.

The Weinstube Habel became a meeting place for the local residents and many foreign visitors to Berlin. The reasons for this were the selection and maintenance of the winery stocks as well as the innkeepers, who did not strive for exclusivity, but at the same time offered an intimacy in their house that attracted the military, parliamentarians and leading personalities from administration, art, science and business.

The Habels' restaurant still exists today as Habel at the Reichstag , although no longer at the original address.

literature

• Walther Döring:  Habel, Johann Simon. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 385 f. ( Digitized version ).