Leopold Sonnemann

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Leopold Sonnemann

Leopold Sonnemann (actually Saul Sonnemann , born October 29, 1831 in Höchberg in Lower Franconia; † October 30, 1909 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a banker, journalist, publisher, politician and patron .

Life

Sonnemann was born as the son of strict Jewish parents who had to leave their Franconian homeland as a result of anti-Semitic riots and who settled in Offenbach am Main in 1840 , where they took over a cloth business. His father, Meyer Sonnemann, had initially been a self-employed master weaver in Höchberg and had sold his goods and goods made on his behalf by other weavers in Würzburg . After attending secondary school and doing autodidactic studies, Leopold initially entered his father's business as a businessman. The young people's political awareness was lastingly influenced by the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848/49. After the death of his parents in 1853, Sonnemann took over his father's company and converted it into a banking company. He was also a co-founder of the Frankfurter Volksbank . Materially secured by his successful international financial transactions, he was now able to turn to politics and social issues. In 1856 he founded the Frankfurter Handelszeitung , which campaigned for freedom from trade and customs and gained influence in trade circles. During the occupation of Frankfurt am Main by the Prussians , Sonnemann fled to Stuttgart in 1866, but was soon able to return and from 1867 was the sole owner and editor of the newspaper, which was then called the Frankfurter Zeitung . Sonnemann determined their political orientation in the sense of the reformist-radical-democratic course of the Paulskirche era that he championed , also with his own contributions and comments. In 1893 he converted the FZ into a GmbH . In 1902 he retired from the management of the publishing house.

In addition to his publishing activities, Sonnemann was politically active. In 1863 he played a leading role in the efforts of the Association of German Workers' Associations. After the establishment, he was the actual leader. Sonnemann helped found the German People's Party in 1868. As their initially only representative, he sat in the Reichstag in 1871, since the new Reich constitution now guaranteed legal equality for Jews. With a brief interruption in 1877/78, Sonnemann retained his mandate until 1884. Friedrich Stoltze , the publisher of the satirical magazine Frankfurter Latern , supported Sonnemann in his election campaigns. Whose opposition to Otto von Bismarck , z. B. in the question of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine , led to temporary bans on FC. From 1869 to 1880, Sonnemann was a member of the Frankfurt city ​​council and the finance committee, where he made outstanding contributions to urban development ( main station , palm garden , Eiserner Steg ). As a patron, he took care of the financing of the opera house and promoted the Senckenberg and Rothschild libraries . In 1891 he initiated the International Electrotechnical Exhibition . In 1899 he founded the Städel Museum Association together with Ludwig Justi , the director of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut . His passionate commitment to the community made him and his paper often the target of anti-Semitic hostility, against which he bravely campaigned in journalism.

From 1855 on, Sonnemann was a member of the Masonic Lodge At the Rising Dawn in Frankfurt am Main. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Straße (grave location: Block 6 R 1a N 13).

family

Leopold Sonnemann married Rosa Schüler, born on February 3, 1854. April 26, 1834 as the daughter of the Jewish goods and banking owner Moses Schüler and his wife Nanette (Nettchen), b. Cohen, from Geseke in Westphalia, died August 30, 1911 in Frankfurt am Main. The couple had a daughter, Therese, who was born in February 1855 and who married Felix Simon , who came from a Königsberg banking family. Therese died on February 28, 1938 in Berlin. The Simon-Sonnemann couple in turn had two children, Heinrich Simon (1880–1941) and Kurt Simon (1881–1957). From 1910 Heinrich Simon was the publisher and chairman of the editorial conference of the Frankfurter Zeitung and, together with his brother Kurt, ran the publishing house and the Frankfurter Zeitung. Kurt was one of the founding members of the first German billiard association at national level ( DABB ) and also became its first president. Rosa Sonnemann's brother Aaron Schüler married Jeanette Kissing, the Sonnemanns' foster daughter. The daughter of Aaron and Jeanette Schüler is the poet Else Lasker-Schüler . Rosa Sonnemann's brother Julius Israel Schüler, a friend of Leopold Sonnemann from his bachelor days, married Johanna geb. Sonnemann, a sister of Leopold. Julius and Johanna Schüler had their daughter Therese, who married the Berlin banker Emil Salomon. They are the parents of the photographer Erich Salomon . Another of Rosa's brother was the portrait painter Max Schüler .

Honors

Grave site in Frankfurt am Main, in the Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Strasse

The secondary school at his birthplace now bears his name. In addition, a street in Frankfurt-Ostend was named after him in Frankfurt am Main .

Exhibitions

literature

  • Heike Drummer, Jutta Zwilling:  Sonnemann, Leopold. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 573 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Roland Flade: Jewish family stories from Lower Franconia. Main-Post, Würzburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-925232-89-3 , pp. 224-233.
  • Klaus Gerteis : Leopold Sonnemann. A contribution to the history of the democratic idea of ​​the nation state in Germany (= Studies on Frankfurt History. 3, ZDB -ID 525352-4 ). Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1970, (at the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1966).
  • Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie. Personal history lexicon. Volume 2: M – Z (= publications of the Historical Commission of the City of Frankfurt am Main. 19, 2). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 .
  • Harald Lordick: Leopold Sonnemann. Controversial politician and founder of the Frankfurter Zeitung. In: Kalonymos . Vol. 12, No. 3, 2009, pp. 1–16, ( digital version (PDF; 4.4 MB) ).
  • Manfred Overesch : Leopold Sonnemann (1831–1909). In: Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (Ed.): German press publishers from the 18th to the 20th century (= journalism-historical contributions. 4). Verlag Documentation, Pullach near Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7940-3604-4 , pp. 172-180.
  • Heinrich Simon : Leopold Sonnemann. His youth history up to the creation of the "Frankfurter Zeitung". sn, Frankfurt am Main 1931.
  • Anna Schnädelbach, Michael Lenarz, Jürgen Steen (eds.): Frankfurt's democratic modernity and Leopold Sonnemann. Jew - publisher - politician - patron (= writings of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main. 29). Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-7973-1150-4 .

Web links

Commons : Leopold Sonnemann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ursula Gehring-Münzel: The Würzburg Jews from 1803 to the end of the First World War. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. Volume III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, pp. 499-528 and 1306-1308, here: p. 510.
  2. ↑ Guide to the graves of well-known personalities in Frankfurt cemeteries . Frankfurt am Main 1985, p. 52.
  3. ^ Dieter Haase: 100 years of billiards in Germany, 1911–2011 . Ed .: German Billard Union. Cologne 2011, DNB  1014024773 , p. 6 .
  4. ↑ Harald Lordick: Leopold Sonnemann. In: Kalonymos. 3 (12) 2009.
  5. ↑ Information about the exhibition ( Memento from January 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Sonnemann, Leopold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sonnemann, Saul (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker, journalist, publisher, patron and politician (DtVP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Höchberg , Lower Franconia
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1909
Place of death Frankfurt am Main