Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich von Erlanger

Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich Freiherr von Erlanger (born September 8, 1836 in Frankfurt am Main ; † February 16, 1898 ibid), the third son from the second marriage of the Frankfurt banker Raphael Freiherr von Erlanger and his second wife Ida Maria geb. Albert (1809–1889) was a German banker from the von Erlanger family .

Role in the banking house

Palais Erlanger , Vienna

After the death of the father and founder of the bank, Raphael Freiherr von Erlanger, Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich Freiherr von Erlanger took over the management of the Erlanger & Söhne bank in 1876 . He had previously managed the Vienna branch and there acquired the Palais Erlanger in 1866 , which he left to his brother Viktor Alexander von Erlanger in 1880 .

He was able to consolidate and expand the development and importance especially developed by his father in close cooperation with his brothers in London and Vienna in the German Empire and internationally. The Frankfurt bank became more and more active, especially in the area of ​​financing. It was significantly involved in the issue of private and state bonds, the establishment of banks, the founding of industrial companies and also the construction and exploitation of railway companies.

Only a few years after Ludwig's death, the Frankfurt banking house Erlanger & Söhne was sold to the major Dresdner Bank in 1904 and formed the basis for their newly established Frankfurt branch.

Marriage and children

Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich Freiherr von Erlanger married Mathilde Gabriele called Sessi geb. Alexander (23 May 1846 - 27 December 1934). She was the daughter of the kuk chief bank accountant Achilles Alexander and his wife Maria Antonia. Before her wedding, she was an opera singer in Vienna. The couple had three children, Espérance, Blanche and Margarethe, Freiinnen von Erlanger. They were all girls, which at the time made it very unlikely that the bank would continue to be inherited directly, especially since his only younger brother, Viktor Alexander Freiherr von Erlanger, died prematurely on September 9, 1894 in Geneva.

Other activities and death

Since 1885, Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich Freiherr von Erlanger and his wife Sessi spent several weeks in Kreuznach for a cure almost every summer . In 1889, at the request of his son-in-law Alexander Prince von Solms-Braunfels, he bought Rheingrafenstein Castle near Kreuznach . In 1911 the widow sold the castle to the city of Kreuznach. Sessi moved to Nieder-Ingelheim to live with her daughter Espérance, where she died in 1934 at the age of 86.

In 1916, a wing of the two-storey main building of Rheingrafenstein Castle from the Baroque era, built in 1688/1689, burned down. Long left to decay, it is now to be reopened as a castle restaurant.

A passion of Ludwig Gottlieb Friedrich Freiherr von Erlanger was equestrian sport. He was a member of the renowned committee of the gallop racecourse in Frankfurt-Niederrad as well as of the event committee of horse racing in Kreuznach.

After a long suffering he died on February 16, 1898 in his Frankfurt home, a few months after the sudden death of his second daughter Blanche.

literature

• Gabriele Mendelssohn: The Erlanger family-bankers-patrons-artists. Leinpfad Verlag, 2005.