Moritz Leiffmann

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Moritz Leiffmann

Moritz Leiffmann (born February 2, 1853 in Unna , † May 29, 1921 in Düsseldorf ) was a German private banker , local politician , writer and art collector .

Life

Moritz Leiffmann was born the son of a Jewish saddler in Unna, Westphalia . He experienced a social rise as an authorized signatory (until 1888) and as a personally liable partner (until 1921) of the Düsseldorf bank Bernhard Simons & Cie. Founded on October 13, 1881 . , which participated intensively in the development of the industrial centers on the Rhine and Ruhr by financing industrial projects and companies. The development of the banking house into a major financial institution is primarily seen as the work of Leiffmann. Through his involvement in the local politics of the city of Düsseldorf, where he worked from 1896 to 1920 as a liberal city ​​councilor, he made a significant contribution to the economic and industrial development of the city, which was advancing to become the “ desk of the Ruhr area ”. From 1915 to 1918 he represented Düsseldorf in the provincial parliament of the Rhine Province . Also as a sponsor of social and artistic projects (around 1899 as an initiator of the Düsseldorf Goethe Festival, as a sponsor of the Düsseldorf Mendelssohn monument erected in 1901 , as a member of the board and head of the finance committee for the International Art and Horticulture Exhibition Düsseldorf 1904 ( Among other things, in the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf ) and as the donor of an inscription to the nail and wood sculpture Bergischer Löwe by Johannes Knubel , erected in 1916 as a “war landmark” , as a speaker and writer on economic and financial topics and as a poet and librettist of some works by Engelbert Humperdinck . In contrast to Michael Simons (1817–1895), his senior partner in the bank, who played an important role in the Dusseldorf synagogue community , Leiffmann - like many other representatives of the upper class - distanced himself from his Jewish religious roots, although he himself continued to be Israelite Belonged to religious community. Leiffmann married Fanny Kaiser (1859–1932). His children, including Martha Leiffmann, born in 1874, who married the doctor Peter Janssen in 1904 and gave birth to the later painter Peter Janssen in 1906 , were baptized Protestants . In 1910 he was given the title of Privy Councilor of Commerce .

Villa Leiffmann

At the turn of the century, the family gave their rather modest domicile above the business premises of the Bernhard Simons & Cie. (later B. Simons & Co. ) in Düsseldorf city center ( Blumenstrasse 19) and moved into the stately "Villa Leiffmann", which was designed in 1898 by the eclectic academy professor Adolf Schill based on the model of a Florentine villa and located in the Golzheim district on extensive grounds , between today's Theodor-Heuss-Brücke , today's Nordpark Düsseldorf , Kaiserswerther Strasse and the Rhine , was built. The palatial villa, surrounded by a park with curved paths and facing the Rhine with an imposing double tower facade , was a “center of glamorous conviviality” until Leiffmann's death and was famous for its valuable furnishings, including a considerable art collection that began in November 1932 , shortly after the death of Leiffmann's widow, was publicly auctioned by the gallery owners Alfred Flechtheim , Hugo Helbing and Georg Paffrath . A few years before her death, probably in the mid-1920s, Fanny Leiffmann had given her son-in-law, the doctor Peter Janssen, a piece of land at Rotterdamer Strasse 40 from her villa property ( during the Nazi era, Alte-Garde -Ufer 104, today Rotterdamer Strasse 65 ) to be parceled out, where Janssen had his own residential building built by the architect Josef Kleesattel in 1926 , which is now a listed building. During the redesign of the north of Düsseldorf to the "Schlageter-Stadt", which the city and the district administration of Düsseldorf promoted in the mid-1930s as part of a personality cult around the free corps fighter Albert Leo Schlageter and an ambitious urban development policy to expand the "Gau capital Düsseldorf", the city acquired the villa area at a very low purchase price from the heirs of Leiffmann, in order to include it in the development of the Reichsausstellung Schaffendes Volk and - in this urban framework - in the construction of the National Socialist model settlement called "Schlageter-Siedlung" (today "Siedlung Golzheim"); Villa Leiffmann, which had been empty since 1932, was demolished in 1936 at the latest. A wrought-iron garden gate grille of the villa, which the writer Herbert Eulenberg had acquired, was reused at the entrance to his property "Haus Freiheit" in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth.

tomb

Leiffmann and his wife were buried in the Jewish part of the Düsseldorf North Cemetery . The tomb marks a simple tuff stone tomb, which was probably designed by the sculptor Leopold Fleischhacker .

Literary work

  • John. Idyll in Hexameters , Versepos, 1878, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1879
  • Gold-silver paper. A study . 3rd edition, Lintz, Düsseldorf 1893
  • Trifolium . Breitkopf & Härtel Verlag, Leipzig 1898 (lyrical poetry, set to music by Engelbert Humperdinck , illustrated with symbolic drawings by Alexander Frenz ; reviewed by Hanns Heinz Ewers in: Der Kunstfreund , February 1899, p. 42 f.)
  • Forces and duties of the German money market in the event of war. A reminder call . Düsseldorf 1899
  • To the wonders of America. Travel description . Schwann Verlag, Düsseldorf 1908
  • Position and tasks of the private banker in today's economic life . Introductory lecture for the 4th General German Bankers' Day in Munich on September 17, 1912, Strucken Verlag, Düsseldorf 1912; also in: Negotiations of the IV General Deutsche Bankiertag in Munich on September 17, 1912 , Berlin 1912, p. 51 ( PDF , digitized version )
  • The cities and the war . In: Bank-Archiv , 14, 8, pp. 134-136
  • The tasks of the communities in the event of war . In: Academy for municipal administration (ed.): Lectures of the municipal week . Düsseldorf 1914, pp. 106–112 (This lecture by Leiffmann, which called for financial and other provisions for the municipalities in the event of war, took place in July 1914, shortly after the murder of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne in Sarajevo and shortly before the outbreak of the First World War , supra-regional attention.)
  • The firm security of our war bonds . In: Bank Archives , 1917

literature

  • Max Kruk: Bankers in their time. Die Männer von B. Simons & Co. Series of publications by the Institute for Bank History Research, Volume 13, Fritz Knapp Verlag, Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 978-3-78190-417-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Commercial Register III 16447, since 1942 Poensgen, Marx & Co .
  2. ^ Barbara Suchy: Düsseldorf . In: Ludger Heid, Julius H. Schoeps, Marina Sassenberg (eds.): Guide through the Jewish Rhineland . Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87584-385-1 , p. 72
  3. ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt : Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf . 9th edition, Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 130.
  4. ↑ Members of the Rhenish Provincial Parliament 1888 1933 (by place of residence) , website in the docplayer.org portal , accessed on February 26, 2016
  5. ↑ The initiative for the Düsseldorf Goethe Festival, which took place between 1899 and 1914, came from Leiffmann, the Düsseldorf District President Georg von Rheinbaben , the public prosecutor Kretschmar and the theater director Max Grube , who directed the event organized by the Rheinischer Goetheverein for the Düsseldorf Festival until 1909 . - Cf. Walter Cohen: Paintings by old and new masters from the estate of Privy Councilor of Commerce M. Leiffmann and from German museum and private collections . Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1932, preface ( digitized version )
  6. ^ Yvonne Wasserloos: The Mendelssohn monument in Düsseldorf. Place of remembrance and confession. P. 6. ( PDF ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rsh-duesseldorf.de
  7. ↑ Heinrich Ms. Berger: International Art and Great Horticultural Exhibition Dusseldorf 1904 . Bagel, Düsseldorf 1905, p. 7 ( digitized version )
  8. ↑ Düsseldorf, reminder data for 2011 , website in the duesseldorf.de portal , accessed on May 1, 2015
  9. ↑ Author: Moritz Leiffmann ( Memento of the original dated June 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website in the recmusic.org portal , accessed on May 1, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.recmusic.org
  10. ↑ Engelbert Humperdinck: Junge Lieder , website in the portalkammermusikfuehrer.de , accessed on May 1, 2015
  11. ↑ Barbara Suchy, p. 72
  12. ↑ Peter Janssen, born in 1874, was the eldest son of the Academy Director Johann Peter Theodor Janssen . He became a renowned surgeon. As such, he founded the "Golzheimer Klinik".
  13. ↑ Leiffmann, Moritz. In: Franz Brümmer : Lexicon of German poets and prose writers from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. Leipzig 1913, p 219. ( digitized )
  14. ↑ Moritz Leiffmann Düsseldorf , entry in the address book of the Lord Mayor's Office Düsseldorf 1889 , accessed on the portal adressbuecher.genealogy.net on May 1, 2015
  15. ↑ The development on the later exhibition site , website in the portal schaffendesvolk1937.de , accessed on May 21, 2016 - see also: Stefanie Schäfers: Vom Werkbund zum Vierjahresplan. The exhibition Schaffendes Volk, Düsseldorf 1937 . Sources and research on the history of the Lower Rhine, Düsseldorfer Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.), Volume 4 (= contributions from the Research Center for Architectural History and Monument Preservation of the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Volume XI), Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-7700-3045- 1
  16. ^ Photo of the Villa Leiffmann, taken from the Rhine
  17. ↑ Photo view over the park of the Villa Leiffmann
  18. ^ Elke Janßen-Schnabel: Düsseldorf. Monument area "Siedlung Golzheim". Expert opinion according to § 22 on the monument value according to § 2 DSchG NW. Pulheim 2011, p. 2.
  19. ^ Walter Cohen: Paintings by old and new masters from the estate of Privy Councilor of Commerce M. Leiffmann and from German museum and private collections . Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1932, preface ( digitized version )
  20. ^ Art dealers of the avant-garde: Auctions , website in the portal alfredflechtheim.com , accessed on May 1, 2015
  21. ↑ Rotterdamer Straße 40 E Janssen, Peter, Prof., Dr. med., doctor, address book of the city of Düsseldorf 1927 ( uni-duesseldorf.de )
  22. ↑ Alte-Garde-Ufer 104 E Janssen, Peter, Prof., Dr. med., doctor, address book of the city of Düsseldorf 1939 ( uni-duesseldorf.de )
  23. ↑ Stefanie Schäfers: From the Werkbund to the four-year plan. The exhibition Schaffendes Volk, Düsseldorf 1937. (= Sources and research on the history of the Lower Rhine , Volume 4.) (= Contributions by the Research Center for Architectural History and Monument Preservation of the Bergische Universität - Comprehensive University of Wuppertal , Volume XI.) Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3 -7700-3045-1 . ( schaffendesvolk1937.de )
  24. ↑ Falk Wiesemann: Steep rise in the upper middle class. The Villa Leiffmann in Düsseldorf. In: Kalonymos, contributions to German-Jewish history from the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute , 3rd year 2000, extra sheet, p. 23. ( PDF )
  25. ↑ Falk Wiesemann, p. 23
  26. ↑ Position and tasks of the private banker in today's economic life (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek)  in the German Digital Library , accessed on May 1, 2015
  27. ↑ Erich Maletzke: Kiel Week 1914 - The Kaiser leaves in a rush . Article from July 1, 2014 in the shz.de portal , accessed on May 2, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Leiffmann, Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German private banker, local politician and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Unna
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1921
Place of death Dusseldorf