Lazarus I. Henckel von Donnersmarck

Lazarus Henckel (since 1607 Lazarus (I.) Henckel von Donnersmarck ) (born October 29, 1551 in Leutschau , † July 13, 1624 in Vienna ) was a wholesaler, banker and mining entrepreneur. He laid the actual basis for the rise of the Henckel von Donnersmarck family .

family

His father Johann allegedly served at the court of the governor of the Netherlands Maria of Hungary . Later he was the taker of the thirtieth in Leutschau. The mother was Anna. Before 1572 he married Anna Ettinger, a merchant's daughter. In his second marriage he was married to Barbara Freifrau von Steinberg and Werffenstein from 1615. The marriages resulted in a total of six sons, four of whom died young and five daughters, two of whom died young. The son Georg later became imperial councilor. The son Lazarus II succeeded his father and was imperial paymaster and councilor.

Life

From the home of the Henckel family in the Zips , Lazarus went to Upper Germany . There he learned the trade. From 1579 he was a factor in the Schenner company from Ulm in Vienna. In 1581 he became a citizen of the city. He bought a house on the meat market and traded goods and money on his own account. With these deals he laid the foundation of his fortune. His first wife's fortune was also important to the expansion of his business. By 1590 his company had already grown beyond Vienna. He maintained factors in Leipzig and Nuremberg and had a liaison at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague . Despite his Lutheran faith, he was a loyal follower of the emperor. In Vienna he became a member of the external council and was an assessor at the city court. In 1591 he acquired the aristocratic residence in Nussdorf and also bought numerous vineyards. As a result, he ran the wine trade on a large scale. In particular, however, he traded in cattle. He bought this in Hungary , Transylvania and Wallachia and let it drift to Vienna and Upper Germany, where it was sold. In 1590 alone, at least 5,000 oxen were traded in this way.

From 1591 he entered into a closer business relationship with the imperial court chamber . The relationship began with a loan worth over 40,000  florins. Henckel paid half of this out in cash, the other half consisted of cloth for clothing the border troops. As a result, he was the only one of the merchants in Vienna who could help out the court with large sums of money. He also partially advanced the Reich aid for the Turkish wars . Henckel alone raised almost one million guilders of the advance payments that were made between 1595 and 1600.

When the Reichspfennigmeister Zacharias Geizkofler was dismissed due to the almost complete financial exhaustion of the Habsburg hereditary lands, Lazarus also got into difficulties at times. These increased when the copper mines in Neusohl failed as a result of an uprising . So far, these have been the only asset item in Austria's foreign trade balance. Henckel also had a quarter of the operating consortium since 1603. His creditworthiness with other trading houses and bankers allowed him to survive the crisis.

His possessions were considerable. He owned various houses in Vienna, three manors and the vineyards. The estates and lordships of Gföll, Wesendorf and Weißenkirch came first as a pledge and then in full his possession. In Vienna he was meanwhile a member of the inner council. The emperor honored him many times, but he always refused to accept offices such as that of Reichspfennigmeister. In 1612, Lazarus gave up the trade in goods, but carried on the money business. The court chamber owed him over a million guilders in 1610. He also held on to the mining stake in Neusohl. After all, he held half of the shares there.

In 1607 his nobility diploma was confirmed. In 1615 he was raised to the baron status. Shortly before his death, Emperor Ferdinand II enfeoffed him in 1623 with the Silesian possessions of Beuthen and Oderberg . These transfers, initially as pledges, were consideration for the loans to the imperial family.

literature

• General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts . Second section H-N. Leipzig, 1829 p. 389
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Henckel von Donnersmarck, Lazarus (I.) . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 8th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1862, p. 301 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Günther Probszt :  Donnersmarck, Lazarus I. Henckel von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 517 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Entry in the Austria Lexicon