Moses Marcus Warburg

Moses Marcus Warburg (* around 1763 in Hamburg , † 18th November 1830 ) was a German banker .

family

The Jewish Warburg family came from Italy and moved to Warburg in Westphalia at the end of the 16th century and took over the city's name as a family name. At the end of the 17th century the family moved to Altona , which was administered by Danes. Gumprich Marcus Warburg (1727–1801) carried out money exchange and deposit transactions here, like the generations before him. He married Hela Heckscher, whose father Marcus Ruben Heckscher had a bank in Hamburg. The couple moved to Hamburg in 1759, probably also because Gumprich Marcus Warburg benefited from the trade here. He had a branch at Peterstrasse 227 and was probably taking advantage of the Danish privileges for his family that had applied in Altona. Moses Marcus Warburg was probably born here in 1763. He had a brother named Gerson Marcus (~ 1768–1884) who remained single. Moses Marcus Warburg married Röschen Hausen, called Abrahamson, with whom he had the daughter Särchen (1805-1884).

Establishment of the MMWarburg & Co banking house

In 1798 Gumprich Marcus Warburg transferred his company to the two sons. While Moses Marcus was considered prudent, energetic and downright religious, Gerson Marcus led an unsteady life. The brothers therefore often got into quarrel. In his will, the father asked them to come to a fraternal agreement. Both continued their father's business as the MMWarburg & Co banking house and concentrated on trading in bills of exchange and coins. Both worked on their own account on the stock exchange.

Despite strong competition from several small banks that emerged in Hamburg at the turn of the century, the brothers were able to establish themselves. In 1810 they signed their first partnership agreement, formulated in Hebrew-Aramaic. The fact that the Jewish community certified the treaty was certainly due to Moses Marcus, who, as an Orthodox Jew, belonged to the Jewish community. Warburg took no leading positions in the community; when the congregation asked him to take over the office, he did not accept it because of his health. He paid the community a yeshiva and supported the publication of religious literature. When the Jewish communities separated from Altona and Hamburg in 1810, he did not take part in the negotiations.

The Warburg brothers benefited from Hamburg's prominent position in North German exchange traffic and in the silver trade. Moses Marcus Warburg is said to have owned around 250,000 marks in a banco, but was not one of the 40 richest Hamburg families who had to make contributions during the Hamburg French era in 1813 . In 1829 Warburg transferred company shares to his nephew Abraham Samuel Warburg (1798–1856), called Aby, who married Warburg's daughter Särchen in the same year. So he hoped to have settled the company succession. In 1829 or 1830, Moses Marcus Warburg had a stroke while visiting the synagogue. After his death in November 1830, he was buried in the Hamburg part of the Jewish cemetery in Königstrasse . He bequeathed his daughter Sara 250,000 Mark Banco or the equivalent of around 125,000 Prussian thalers.

After the death of the bank's founder, Aby Samuel Warburg managed the business. Later his cousin Elias Warburg joined the bank and stayed with the bank until 1837. Sara Warburg de facto took over the management of the bank.

literature

• Ina Lorenz : Warburg, Moses Marcus . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 356-357 .