Leffmann Behrens

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Leffmann Behrens after a portrait by Andreas Scheits

Leffmann Behrens , Jewish name: Elieser (Ezechiel) Lippmann Cohen (* 1634 in Bochum ; † January 1, 1714 in Hanover ), was a German court factor , court and chamber agent ( banker ) of the Hanoverian Guelph Dukes of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Century.

Within 30 years, Leffmann succeeded in advancing from being a protected Jew (with the right to live in Calenberger Neustadt for himself, his family members and domestic servants ) to becoming a “court and chamber agent” . Elector Georg Ludwig appointed him to do this in 1698.

Life

Leffmann Behrens was the son of the Brandenburg Jewish chief Issachar b. Jitzchak Hakohen alias Berndt Isaaks, who is recorded in Bochum from 1633 to 1661. Leffmann and other family members immigrated to Hanover from Westphalia.

After his marriage to Jente Hameln (1629–1695), the sister-in-law of the famous memoir writer Glikl bas Judah Leib (also Glückel von Hameln) (1645–1724), widow of the merchant Salomon Gans and daughter of the wealthy merchant Jobst Goldschmidt, Leffmann Behrens succeeded to successfully build a company whose first profits were made by brokering luxury items for Duke Johann Friedrich's court.

The company continued to grow - also under the rule of Johann Friedrich's successors Ernst August and Georg Ludwig - through their services as purveyors to the court (e.g. carriages), army suppliers (fabrics) and the transfer of so-called subsidies , the money for renting from own troops to other powers, for example to Catholic France (1672–80 and 1690/91), the emperor in Vienna or Holland and Great Britain (from 1702), when granting credits to the chamber treasury or the ducal family, to court charter and government officials.

Leffmann Behrens brokered large loans of several hundred thousand thalers to finance the electoral dignity for Ernst August 1692 and the Polish crown for August the Strong in 1697 (which in turn was connected with the acquisition of the Duchy of Lauenburg by Hanover). His external business connections to Hamburg (Manoel Texeira, to the Mussaphias), Frankfurt am Main, Vienna (Oppenheimer, Wertheimer), Lippe-Detmold, Schaumburg-Lippe, Braunschweig-Lüneburg, the diocese of Münster, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Eichstätt were useful , Saxe-Gotha and Goslar.

Leffmann Behrens remained a pious Jew, without any desire to assimilate in his Christian environment . The social advancement would have been denied to him during this time anyway. He actively supported his fellow believers who were persecuted, for example in the case of his work to secure the Jewish cemetery on Oberstrasse (1671/73), as the initiator of the land rabbinate (1687) and as the founder of the first synagogue on Bergstrasse (1704) from his son Herz Behrens (1657–1709).

He also intervened with his sovereign against anti-Jewish writings (those of Gulich , 1690, and Eisenmenger , 1700) and was one of the initiators of the famous religious discussion (see literature) with a baptized Jew in Hanover in 1704. The participants of this great dispute were the Rabbi from Stadthagen Joseph Samson , the Elector Georg Ludwig, Duke Georg Wilhelm from Celle, the Electress Sophie , whose youngest son Ernst August the Elder. J. , the Loccumer Abbot Gerhard Wolter Molanus , Leffmann Behrens himself, numerous court officials and scholars as listeners. It lasted three and a half hours and took place in the apartments of the Elector Mother Sophie in the Palais on Leinstrasse.

The company had run into financial difficulties since the death of Leffmann Behrens' son Herz in 1709. She was also troubled by competition from court Jew Michael David († 1758), a former employee, who was appointed court and chamber agent in 1714 after Behrens' death. On January 30th Leffmann Behrens died, in June the Electress Sophie, and in August her son Georg Ludwig ascended the British throne as King George I. The continuation of the Behrens company by Leffmann's grandsons Gumpert and Isaac Behrens († 1765) only succeeded until 1721, when the company went bankrupt. The bankruptcy loss was 400,000 thalers. Gumpert and Isaac were imprisoned for five years, after which they were expelled from the electorate.

Leffmann Behrens' house, in which he offered several scholars free accommodation, was located at Langen Strasse 8 in Calenberger Neustadt . It was a half-timbered house from 1674, bore the Hebrew inscriptions “Much good” and “No trouble step through this door!” And was only destroyed by bombs in 1943.

Henning Rischbieter rightly points out in the Hanoverian reader that Leffmann Behrens, in contrast to his temporary competitor and business partner, the Hanoverian early capitalist Johann Duve (1611–1697), knitted the false legend of a charitable entrepreneur in Hanover into the 20th century is completely undervalued. On the other hand, Behrens, as a court factor to a certain extent Duve's Jewish counterpart, is to be seen as a benefactor, especially his discriminated Jewish co-religionists. However: no street names, no plaques, no memorials commemorate this important Jewish personality of the early modern period in Hanover.

Tomb

Instead of an independent memorial, the tomb of Elieser Behrens reminds of the court and chamber agents in the old Jewish cemetery on Oberstrasse . The only portrait of Leffmann Behrens by Andreas Scheits is reproduced in color in Louis and Henry Fraenkel's Genealogical tables of Jewish families .

family

Leffmann was married to

  • 1. NN, in Bochum
  • 2. after 1661 Jente Goldschmidt-Hameln (* Hanover 1623, † Hanover July 25, 1695), daughter of Joseph (Jobst) Goldschmidt-Hameln, widow of Salman / Salomon Gans († 1654)
  • 3. 1707 Elkele Jakob († November 2, 1710) (his cousin)
  • 4. 1711 Feile Dillmann († March 17, 1727), T. d. Jehuda Selke Dillmann

children

  • Naphtali b. Elieser Lipmann Hakohen alias Herz Behrens (* Bochum 1657, † Hanover February 23, 1709) was head of the Jewish community in Hanover-Neustadt, ⚭ Serchen Wertheimer († March 9, 1739), daughter of Samson Wertheimer
  • Genendel (* Hanover 1658, † Hanover June 13, 1712) ⚭ David Oppenheim (* Worms 1664, † Prague September 12, 1736), chief rabbi in Prague and wine merchant
  • Moses Jakob (* Hanover 1662, † Leipzig January 19, 1697) Talmudic scholar ⚭ Siese Cleve-Gomperz (* 1658, † December 17, 1725), daughter of Elias Joseph Gomperz and Sara Miriam Jacob

Grandson:

  • Isaak (Itzig) Behrens (* 1683, September 11, 1765) ⚭ Lea Lehmann, daughter of Issachar Behrend Lehmann , head court factor. He was the son of Moses Jacob, so the grandson of Leffmann Behrens
  • Gumpert Behrens († 1726), ⚭ 1703 with Sprinze Kann, Oberhoffaktor in Hanover. He was the son of Moses Jakob, i.e. the grandson of Leffmann Behrens

literature

  • Heinrich Schnee:  Behrens, Elieser, called Leffmann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 12 ( digitized version ). (Outdated and partly tendentious.)
  • Selig Gronemann : Genealogical studies on the old Jewish families of Hanover. Berlin 1913.
  • Religious talk, held at the Electoral Court of Hanover in 1704. Edited from a Hebrew manuscript. and over. by A. Berliner (among others). Berlin: Lamb 1914.
  • Margret Wahl: The old Jewish cemetery in Hanover. With contributions by Ludwig Lazarus (among others). In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter. NF Vol. 15 (1961), pp. 1-76 (p. 32: grave no. 159: Leffmann Behrens Cohen, photograph of the tombstone with grave inscription, translated from Hebrew).
  • Herbert Mundhenke : Ezekiel Leffmann Behrens. In: Life and Destiny. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover. Published by the state capital Hanover, press office, in Zsarb. with the Jewish Community of Hanover. Hanover 1963, pp. 52-57.
  • Henning Rischbieter : Hannoversches Lesebuch or: What was written, printed and read in Hanover and about Hanover. Vol. 1: 1650-1850. 3rd edition. Schlüter, Hannover 1986, pp. 21-26 (Chapter: I, 4: Early Capitalists: Duve and Leffmann Behrens - The Virgin of Peinholz).
  • Bernd Schedlitz: Leffmann Behrens. Investigations into Court Judaism in the Age of Absolutism . Hildesheim: Lax 1984 (sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony. Vol. 97.) ISBN 3-7848-3497-3 (The standard work on Leffmann Behrens)
  • "... that the Jews in our country should choose a rabbi ..." Contributions to the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the Hanover regional rabbinate on March 10, 1987 . Henry G. Brandt, Peter Schulze (among others). Hanover: State Association of the Jewish Communities of Lower Saxony and the Jewish Community of Hanover 1987.
  • Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Jewish personalities in Hanover's history . Hanover: Lutherhaus-Verlag 1998, pp. 96-101.
  • Waldemar R. Röhrbein in: Hannoversches biographisches Lexikon , pp. 45–46
  • Louis and Henry Fraenkel: Genealogical tables of Jewish families. 14th – 20th centuries. Forgotten fragments of the history of the Fraenkel family . Transl. from Danish: Glimt af Glemt by: Malene Woodman. 2nd edition Munich: Saur 1999. ISBN 3-598-11426-5
    • Vol. 1 .: Text and indexes (pp. 15–31: Leffmann Behrens; on page 28: Portrait of Leffmann Behrens by Andreas Scheidts)
    • Vol. 2 .: Genealogical tables
  • Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier: The solution to a riddle. On the Westphalian origin of the Hanoverian court and chamber agent Leffmann Behrens. In: Westfalen 90 (2012) pp. 75–91.

Web links

Commons : Leffmann Behrens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The question of origin was finally clarified by Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier, Eine Rätselslösung. On the Westphalian origin of the Hanoverian court and chamber agent Leffmann Behrens, in: Westfalen 90 (2012) pp. 75–91
  2. ↑ Linnemeier, Rätselslösung (2012), pp. 77–79 and family table p. 91; Stadtlexikon Hannover ..., p. 54
  3. ↑ About his family: Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier, "Waßgestalt my parents and ancestors alhie had their apartment in this laudable city of Minden ...". The Jewish Gans family from Lippstadt and Minden and their relatives from the 16th to the end of the 18th century. A contribution to the history of the Jewish upper class of Northwest Germany in the early modern period, in: Contributions to Westphalian Family Research 53 (1995) pp. 323–341.
  4. ^ Cf. Arnold Nöldeke : Kunstdenkmale, p. 537
  5. ↑ Vol. I, pp. 21-26
  6. ^ Grave no. 159, illustration of the tombstone in Wahl and in the Hannoversche Biographisches Lexikon , p. 45; Preview over google books
  7. ↑ Munich 1999, p. 28
  8. ↑ According to Linnemeier, Rätselslösung (2012), pp. 86–87 and family tree p. 91, very likely the mother of the eldest son Naphtali / Herz.
  9. ↑ Linnemeier, Rätselslösung (2012), pp. 86–87, esp. Note 87.
  10. ↑ According to Linnemeier, Rätselslösung (2012), p. 86–87 and family tree p. 91, very likely son from his first marriage in Bochum.
personal data
SURNAME Behrens, Leffmann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German court Jew, court and chamber agent (banker) of the Hanoverian Guelph dukes
DATE OF BIRTH 1634
PLACE OF BIRTH Bochum
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1714
Place of death Hanover