Mattheus Rodde (politician, 1754)

Mattheus Rodde

Mattheus Rodde (* 1754 in Lübeck ; † December 14, 1825 there ) was a German merchant and mayor of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck .

Life

Rodde came from a Lübeck merchant and councilor family. In 1792 he married Dorothea Schlözer , the daughter of the Göttingen professor August Ludwig Schlözer , who was the first woman in Germany to receive a doctorate in philosophy; the marriage had three children. From 1797 to 1811, the French writer Charles de Villers, who fled the turmoil of the revolutionary era, lived in the Rodde house, in a classic ménage à trois . As a successful businessman, Rodde was elected to the council in 1789 and as the fifth extraordinary mayor of the Hanseatic city in 1806 . This made him an important player in the Lübeck French era .

Lübeck councilor and mayor

activities

As a councilor, his main focus was, on the one hand, on perceiving Lübeck's external relations. He was envoy at the Hildesheim Congress in 1796 and at the Rastatt Congress in 1797, on a diplomatic mission with Villers in Paris in 1801, took part in negotiations with the Duchy of Oldenburg in 1803 on the territorial equalization as a result of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , was also envoy to the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1803 , traveled in December 1804 as a member of the Hanseatic embassy to the coronation of Napoléon Bonaparte in Paris and in 1805 as a Liibeck representative to the imperial court in Vienna.

On the other hand, he developed into a major financier in his hometown. As early as 1796 to 1804, the payments for the troops standing on the north German demarcation line ran through his office, as well as the contributions to the Imperial War Fund and the Hanseatic loans enforced by France in 1798 and 1803.

French period

Rodde earned special services after the conquest and occupation of Lübeck by French troops in November 1806 (see: Lübeck French times ). First he traveled to Napoleon in Berlin with Christian Adolph Overbeck , in order - in vain - to achieve more favorable conditions for the city. After his return, the council entrusted him with sole control and disposal of the Lübeck state finances, a break with centuries-old republican constitutional tradition. For three and a half years he received all of the city's income from taxes and duties and paid for all public expenses and the contribution payments imposed by France on his own account , for which Rodde also took out loans from banks in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Paris.

Bankrupt

The circumstances of his eventual insolvency were spectacular . Since he did not keep separate books, but instead mixed up private and state assets, Rodde lost track of the financial situation. When the balance was drawn in the summer of 1810, it emerged that Rodde of the city over a million marks Lüb. owed. On September 14, 1810, he had to pay 2 1/2 million marks in Lüb. Liabilities and 1/2 million Mark Lüb. Declare his insolvency in the shortfall and, as a bankrupt, leave the council in accordance with the city's laws and leave Lübeck; the collapse of the Roddesche trading house had financial consequences as far as Holland and France.

Villers, professor at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since 1811 , secured part of the fortune of Rodde's wife Dorothea Schlözer. The Roddes then lived in Göttingen until Dorothea's death . Rodde then returned to Lübeck, where he was supported by old friends. The unselfish work of Rodde for his hometown was neither recognized nor honored by the authorities there.

The house of the Roddes

In the bankruptcy balance sheet, which resulted from his insolvency, his house, which was one of the most magnificent in town, is listed at 20,000 marks, with a simultaneous debit of 10,000 marks Lüb . Because of the poor economic situation as a result of the continental blockade , the house and property became as good as worthless. In 1811 Margaretha Elisabeth Jenisch bought the house for 788 Mark Lüb. and sold it again in 1828 for 30,000 marks in Lüb. The Roddes house was on Breite Strasse , number 413, in the Jacobi Quartier ; the new owners had it torn down and a new one built - today Breite Straße 13. In 1811 the Roddesche property was offered for sale with the following description (text slightly changed):

Three rooms in the hall, a chamber on one side of the front door, and a room on the other

1st floor: 3 heatable rooms and 4 chambers

Side wing on the north side:

Below: 2 rooms and a hall

Above: 4 rooms and a chamber

Side wing south side:

Below: kitchen pantry, 2 serving rooms, wash house, stable for 6 horses

Above: Several chambers for the servants, for housekeeping and for the coachman also a hayloft

Behind the courtyard was a carriage shed

Under the forecourt: 3 vaulted and one beam cellar, in the latter Terraskumm for running artificial water

Under the north wing: 1 vaulted dining cellar

Under the south wing: Also a small vaulted cellar

Lot size: 92 feet wide by 140 feet deep

In the 20th century the house was used as the Capitol cinema.

literature

• Emil Ferdinand Fehling : Lübeck Council Line , Lübeck 1925.
• Michaela Blunk: Lübeck in the French period 1806–1813 . (Information on regional history). Published by the Lübeck seminar for secondary schools - IPTS 62, Lübeck 1986.
• Friedrich Hassenstein: Rodde-Schlözer, Dorothea , in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Neumünster 1994, ISBN 3-529-02650-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Friedrich Bruns †: The Lübeck Council. Composition, addition and management, from the beginning to the 19th century. In: ZVLGA , Volume 32 (1951), pp. 1–69, p. 63 (Chapter 9: Conclusion of Council Membership )
2. ↑ A Terraskumm is a Kumm ( Northern German: deep bowl , trough ) made of terrazzo , see Cornelia Moeck-Schlömer: Water for Hamburg: the history of Hamburg's field fountains and water arts from the 15th to the 19th century. Hamburg: Association for Hamburg History, 1998, p. 280