Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg
Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg (born March 24, 1812 in Warsaw , † April 5, 1878 in Nice ) was a Polish banker and entrepreneur of Jewish descent.
His father, Samuel Eleasar Kronenberg from the small town of Wyszogród near Płock , was a Warsaw banker. As one of his four sons, Leopold was a student in the Catholic high school of the Piarist Order and after graduating from high school studied at the Practical and Technical Academy in Hamburg and at the Berlin University. In 1832 he returned to Warsaw and became a businessman. In 1846 he converted to Calvinism .
In 1845 he married Ernestine Rosalie Leo. He was the father of two sons - Stanisław Leopold Kronenberg and Leopold Julian Kronenberg - and two daughters - Rosa Orsetti and Marie, first wife Countess Zamoyska, second marriage Baroness Taube.
In 1833 Leopold Kronenberg was entered in the register of Warsaw merchants. He mainly dealt with banking. He leased the Russian tobacco monopoly , which brought him a considerable profit. He brought the French banks Crédit Lyonnais and Crédit Mobilier into the country. In 1851 he founded his own bank, which mainly financed industry and agriculture. In 1860 he founded a tobacco factory with 700 workers in Warsaw. In 1870 he founded the Handelsbank, which still operates today, albeit under the name Citi Bank Handlowy. He financed the construction of the Vistula Railway Line (Kolej Nadwiślańska) and built many sugar factories. Kronenberg was a partner in Mirkower Papierfabrik AG (Polish: Towarzystwo Akcyjne Mirkowskiej Fabryki Papieru ), which operated a paper mill in Mirków and from around 1870 in Konstancin-Jeziorna .
From 1859 he supported the Polish daily, which was edited by the writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski .
Leopold Kronenberg built his residence, the Kronenberg Palace (architect Friedrich Hitzig from Berlin) from 1868 to 1871, which burned down in September 1939 during the attack on Poland . The well-preserved ruins were only demolished in the 1960s.
Leopold Kronenberg lived in times of Polish division and the conflicts between the Poles and the Russian state. There were bloody riots several times. Therefore he tried to alleviate the tense situation. He supported Count Aleksander Wielopolski in his efforts to create better conditions for the Poles who lived under Russian rule. For patriotically minded Poles, however, Wielopolski was considered a traitor.
In 1861 Kronenberg was part of the “white” party. He was a leading member of the Delegacja Miejska , which administered Warsaw for a few weeks. During the January uprising in 1863 he tried to defuse the dispute, after which he withdrew from politics. He was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir and hereditary nobility by the Tsar .
In 1875 he founded the business school in Warsaw. He died three years later in Nice and was buried in the burial chapel in the cemetery of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Warsaw.
literature
- Jadwiga and Eugeniusz Szulc, Cmentarz Ewangelicko-Reformowany w Warszawie , Warszawa 1989
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kronenberg, Leopold Stanisław |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish businessman and entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 24, 1812 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 5, 1878 |
| Place of death | Nice |