Martin Joseph Haller

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Martin Joseph Haller (1770-1852)

Martin Joseph Haller (born June 18, 1770 in Halle an der Saale ; † December 15, 1852 in Hamburg ) was a German businessman , banker , President of the Chamber of Commerce from 1822 to 1823 and a patron of the composer Georg Gerson .

Life and career

Martin Joseph Haller (until 1805 Mendel Joseph Haller ) came to the tri-congregation of Hamburg around 1794 as a penniless immigrant . He was married to Elisabeth (until 1805 Blümchen ) Gottschalk (1770–1816) from Hanover and lived as a so-called protective Jew under the circumstances that were liberal for the time in the Danish-controlled Altona . Around 1799 he found a position in the Hamburg trading company Fürst et Comp. of the merchant Levin Salomon Fürst (from 1802 Lorenz Fürst ). 1804 he became a partner in this company, which now includes as Haller & Co. prince was called.

After the birth of his son Nicolaus Ferdinand , the elders reported that he had not had his son circumcised . He wanted his son: ... not to subject him to this operation, which is far more dangerous than is generally believed. Cases of bleeding or mutilation are not uncommon, and just recently a friend of mine lost a child to this operation and urges me not to do it. Shortly afterwards (on June 26, 1805 in the church in Allermöhe ) he was baptized and the family Christian and took the name Martin Joseph Haller. His godparents were Haller's business partner, Lorenz Levin Salomon Fürst (who had converted to Christianity himself in 1802), and the lawyer Johann Hermann Luis, the baptism was carried out by Pastor Karl Johann Heinrich Hübbe after Haller wrote him a long letter on May 30, 1805 sent with reflections on the philosophy of religion, in which an enlightening guiding principle rather than Christian conviction was expressed .

Haller had founded the JM Haller bank as early as 1797 (later Bankhaus Haller, Söhle & Co. ), as the owner of which he soon gained a reputation. In 1818 he became a member of the Commerz Deputation , of which he was President from May 1822 to May 1823.

Music sponsor and art collector

Haller was a well-read lover of culture, built a library and a collection of paintings in his house, and, like his colleague Lorenz Fürst, was a lover of house music and a patron of the composer Georg Gerson . In addition, he was present at concerts in the stock exchange hall founded by Gerhard von Hoßtrup . Contemporary witnesses said about his work as an art collector: He was interested in paintings, if no judgment, and left a not insignificant collection of old oil paintings, some of which were valuable, which he occasionally acquired cheaply from needy emigrants in the early 19th century .

Family and descendants (selection)

Stele for Elisabeth and Martin Joseph Haller , Martin Haller family grave , Ohlsdorf cemetery

Martin Joseph Haller was the son of Joseph Benjamin Haller (* around 1720, † 1772 in Halle) and came from one of the 50 Jewish families who were expelled from Vienna and found asylum in the city of Halle. He had a brother named John Ries and a younger brother, Joseph Benjamin (Benny) Haller (born July 15, 1772 Halle, † 26 September 1838), whose daughter Philippine (1822 to 1892) later the mother of the painter Max Liebermann was . Haller's sister-in-law, Amalie Angelica Christiane Gottschalk (born July 26, 1777 in Hanover; † February 20, 1838 in St. Petersburg ) was married to Baron Ludwig Stieglitz , the founder of the Stieglitz & Co. banking house in St. Petersburg.

Martin Joseph Haller had several offspring, including:

  • Wilhelm Ludwig Haller
  • Nicolaus Ferdinand Haller (born January 21, 1805 Hamburg; † October 10, 1876 ibid), Mayor of Hamburg 1863 to 1875
  • Auguste Clara Haller (1799-1883); ⚭ 1829 businessman Johann Christian Söhle (1801–1871). Contemporary witnesses said: ... Nobody who saw this small, round, busy housewife or met her at the hop market , where she always bought fish, vegetables and the like personally and negotiated the price in Platt , nobody would be one of her suspected a spirited, highly educated lady who spoke not only English and French, but also Italian, Spanish and Russian, for which she found ample opportunity through frequent table visits from business friends of her father's abroad.
  • Johann Eduard Haller (born March 2, 1810 in Hamburg; † February 15, 1889 there), banker.

Works

  • About the proposed introduction of the Teutscher Reichszölle to take up industry ; in Nemesis , Journal for Politics and History, Volume 3, Part II (Weimar, 1814). Pp. 170-198; Online via Google Books (last visited April 30, 2020)
  • Six letters on trade in the Hanseatic cities, especially in relation to the attacks on the manuscript from southern Germany . Verlag Johann Georg Heyse (Bremen, 1821); Online via Google Books (last visited April 30, 2020)

Web links and literature

  • Mondrup, Christian (2017): Georg Gerson 1790–1825 Directory of two hundred of my compositions . Online (last visited on April 27, 2020).
  • Mühlfried, Klaus (2005): Confession Change in the Late Enlightenment. Martin Joseph Haller's transition from Judaism to the Lutheran creed . In: Edited by Dirk Brietzke and Rainer Nicolaysen. Bd. 91. Hamburg: Association for Hamburg History. Online (last visited on April 27, 2020).
  • Haller, Martin (1985): Memories of childhood and parental home . Edited by Renate Hauschild-Thiessen. Hamburg: Society of Book Friends to Hamburg.
  • Ellermeyer, Jürgen (1993): Hanseatic Liberality and Right of Residence of Hamburg Jews around 1800. Appellant Levin Salomon Fürst before the Reich Chamber of Commerce . In: Law and Everyday Life in the Hanseatic Region: Gerhard Theuerkauf on his 60th birthday; [Festschrift for Gerhard Theuerkauf]. - Lüneburg: German Salt Museum , 1993, ISBN 3-925476-03-2 , pp. 71-124.
  • Jacob Jacobson , Ed. (1962): The Jewish Citizens' Books of the City of Berlin 1809-1851. With additions for the years 1791–1809 , Berlin: de Gruyter, 1962 (publications by the Berlin Historical Commission at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin; vol. 4), p. 117. Online via Google books (last visited on April 30, 2020)
  • Jewish Hamburg . Entry Haller, Familie , Ed .: Institute for the History of German Jews (last visited on April 27, 2020).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ hamburgerpersoenitäten.de Entry Martin Joseph Haller, accessed on April 27, 2020
  2. ↑ Hamburg address book 1803–1806
  3. ↑ see Mondrup 2017, p. 142
  4. ↑ Mühlfried (2005) p. 59 ff
  5. ^ Letter from Martin Joseph Haller to Pastor Hübbe regarding the intended change of denomination, 1805
  6. ↑ Hamburg State Archives signature 622-1 / 33_1
  7. ↑ see Mondrup 2017, p. 143
  8. ↑ hamburgerpersoenitäten.de Entry Martin Joseph Haller , accessed on April 27, 2020
  9. ↑ Portrait in Mühlfried (2005) p. 59 ff
  10. ↑ Mühlfried (2005) pp. 65, 66
  11. ↑ see Mondrup 2017, p. 146
  12. ↑ see Mondrup 2017, p. 143
  13. ↑ cf. Jacob Jacobson (1962), p. 117
  14. ↑ see Mondrup 2017, p. 7
personal data
SURNAME Haller, Martin Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haller, Mendel Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant and banker
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1852
Place of death Hamburg