Jewish porcelain

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The term Jewish porcelain hides what is probably the most drastic special tax that Jews were exposed to in Frederician Prussia . By cabinet order of March 21, 1769, Frederick II (1712–1786) ordered that Jews should receive new letters of protection or inheritance, purchase real estate for 300 thalers and receive a general privilege for 500 thalers of porcelain from the Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur Berlin (KPM) and sell it overseas. The implementation of this special tax threatened the existence of numerous Jewish families, as these sums each corresponded to several annual salaries of a Berlin factory worker. For economic reasons, the bureaucracy initially implemented the regulation only imperfectly. In 1779 Friedrich intervened and drastically tightened administrative practice. Financial losses for and emigration of Jews were consciously accepted.

The pejorative designation “Jewish porcelain” owes its origin to the fact that the affected Jews sold the goods that were forced on them on the German and European markets mostly with losses of 50 percent and more, which ultimately had a reputation-damaging effect on the Berlin manufactory. Against this background, the “obligation to export porcelain” was lifted after the death of Friedrich II on the initiative of the new KPM boss Friedrich Anton von Heinitz in 1787/1788. However, the Jews had to pay another 40,000 thalers for this.

On the basis of the regulation of 1769, there were around 1,400 forced purchases with a total volume of 280,000 thalers. The "Jewish porcelain" was mainly sold to Mecklenburg , Hamburg and Eastern Europe.

The family legend handed down by Mendelssohn's great-grandson Sebastian Hensel , according to which Moses Mendelssohn had to acquire twenty porcelain monkeys when he married in 1762, does not apply because the marriage edict was not yet in force at the time and the monkey knick-knacks that were still in the family's possession in 1929 come from Meißen production. But since Mendelssohn's wedding took place at the time of the Prussian war against Saxony and could only take place with special permission from the state, the purchase of corresponding private spoils for transporting the event seems conceivable and could explain its origin.

literature

  • Tobias Schenk: pioneer of emancipation? Studies on the Jewish policy of "Enlightened absolutism" in Prussia (1763-1812) (sources and research on Brandenburg and Prussian history, vol. 39), Berlin 2010.
  • ders. (ed.): The "Jewish porcelain" An annotated source presentation on the legal and social history of the Jews in Frederician Prussia (1769–1788)
  • ders .: Rzeczpospolita i Gdańsk jako rynki zbytu dla berlińskiej porcelany w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku / The aristocratic republic of Poland and the city of Danzig as sales markets for Berlin porcelain in the second half of the 18th century , in: "... łyżek srebrnych dwa tuziny" . Srebra domowe w Gdańsku 1700 - 1816 / "... two dozen silver spoons". House silver in Danzig 1700 - 1816, ed. v. Jacek Kriegseisen and Ewa Barylewska-Szymańska, Gdańsk 2007, pp. 133–143, 145–153 (Polish / German).
  • ders .: From the Spree to the Danube. The “Porcellaineexportationszwang” and the Jewish porcelain by Jacob Schiff from Bielefeld , in: Ravensberger Blätter (2/2008), pp. 1–11.
  • ders .: At the limits of the Enlightenment. Friderizian Jewish policy in the mirror of anecdotes about Moses Mendelssohn , in: Mendelssohn studies. Contributions to recent German cultural history 16 (2009), pp. 371–396.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tobias Schenk - Das "Judenporzellan", accessed on August 8, 2016
  2. ↑ Stephen Tree, Moses Mendelssohn , Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2007, p. 67