Otto Crelinger

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Otto Crelinger, drawing by Ina Schneider

Otto Crelinger (born August 3, 1802 in Hanover , † March 21 , according to other information May 18, 1874 in Berlin ) was a German banker . As the founder of the Allgemeine Eisenbahn-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft, he is one of the important pioneers in the insurance industry in the 19th century.

Life

Crelinger grew up as the son of a Jewish merchant family. His mother was Henriette Wilhelmine Charlotte Catherina Crelinger (1774–1826), b. Philippsborn, daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm Benjamin Philippsborn and the Pessel, born. Herfort Liebmann. In the Wars of Liberation , she financed the establishment of a volunteer corps by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn with a large donation . Crelinger's father was the court factor of the Prussian army (1813 Intendant of the Northern Army) and Secret War Councilor Johann Jacob Crelinger (1753-1837), who was baptized around 1801/03. In 1822 he acquired the Langenöls and Welkersdorf estates from Count Johann Christian Heinrich Hermann zu Solms . In 1826, however, Johann Jacob Crelinger suffered bankruptcy through speculation with foreign government bonds.

His mother was strictly against Otto Crelinger's marriage plans, but died in December 1826 as a result of a stroke. On January 31, 1827, Crelinger became engaged to the actress Auguste Sophie Stich, born in 1824, who had been widowed . Düring , whom he married on April 23, 1827. The daughters from her marriage to the actor Wilhelm Heinrich Stich (1794-1824), Bertha (1818-1876) and Clara (1820-1865), as well as their son Gustav (1822-1848), he adopted as a child.

The couple's daughter, Johanne Henriette Emilie Auguste Crelinger (1828–1900), married the lawyer Friedrich Adolf Alexander Groschke (1821–1871) in 1851 , who served as district administrator in the Silesian town of Frankenstein from 1852 to 1870 and thus became heavily in debt. After his death, Auguste Groschke founded a private educational boarding school for older daughters. From the estate of the music educator Clara Groschke, a granddaughter of Otto and Auguste Crelinger, a portrait of Auguste Crelinger as the Maiden of Orleans (1818) by Friedrich Georg Weitsch and a portrait of Johann Jacob Crelinger were brought to the Märkisches Museum in 1925 .

Political commitment

Crelinger was interested in theater, art and literature and was active as a patron in these areas. The couple's house became a gathering point for socializing in Berlin. The letters from Paris and France in 1830 by Friedrich von Raumer addressed to Crelinger. With Friedrich Hebbel he discussed knowledgeably about his tragedies such as Judith or Maria Magdalena .

During the March Revolution of 1848 Otto Crelinger supported the Democratic-Constitutional Club around the writer Robert Prutz . The club was founded on March 28, 1848 in the station building of the Berlin-Potsdamer Railway; his first spokesman was Otto's older brother, the lawyer and judicial advisor at the upper tribunal Friedrich Ludwig Crelinger (1797-1853).

Foundation of the Eisenbahn-Assekuranz-Gesellschaft

Crelinger was a banker and member of the board of directors of the Berlin-Potsdamer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . Shortly after the company opened its main line between Berlin and Potsdam on October 29, 1838, a law was passed in Prussia on November 3, 1838, which provided for stricter strict liability for railways for personal injury and property damage, for which the railway company bore the burden of proof.

In order to counter this risk, on September 9, 1843, Crelinger applied to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. For the approval of a railway insurance company that was supposed to assume a fixed sum in the event of personal injury. The application was unsuccessful as it was believed that the existence of such coverage would increase the railroad company's negligence.

However, Crelinger continued working on the idea and developed accident insurance coverage in October 1844, but approval was refused for the same reasons. Years of further negotiations, however, led on September 26, 1853 to the establishment of the Allgemeine Eisenbahn-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft to operate transport, life, accident and fire insurance for rail traffic , of which Crelinger became the first director. When the restriction to rail traffic was later removed, the company was renamed Victoria .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth and death dates according to the archive of the Ergo Group Düsseldorf. Cf. also the report about his serious illness in the New Foreign Gazette Vienna Vol. 10, No. 47, February 17, 1874 (supplement) ( digitized version )
  2. ^ Different date of death in a commemorative article for Auguste Crelinger by Friedrich Katt, quoted in in: New Theater Almanac. Theater History Year and Address Book Vol. 8 (1897), p. 145 ( digitized version )
  3. ↑ Peter Koch: Pioneers of the insurance concept. 300 years of insurance history in life pictures 1550-1850 . Business publisher Gabler, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 13 . Quote: "The German insurance history shows a number of important entrepreneurs, to name only Averdieck, Arnoldi, Hansemann, Wechßler, Olearius, Knoblauch, Lobeck, Wehle and Crelinger."
  4. ↑ Directory of the for Professor Jahn, because of the establishment of the Königl. Prussia. Freikorps, collected contributions in: Berlinische Nachrichten von Staats- und schehrten Dinge (Spenersche) No. 91, July 31, 1813, supplement.
  5. ^ A b Peter Koch: Pioneers of the insurance concept. 300 years of insurance history in life pictures 1550-1850 . Business publisher Gabler, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 302 .
  6. ^ Karl August Varnhagen von Ense : Leaves from the Prussian history . Ed. V. Ludmilla Assing , Vol. 4, Leipzig 1869, p. 26 ( digitized version ).
  7. ^ Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Leaves from the Prussian history . Ed. V. Ludmilla Assing, Vol. 4, Leipzig 1869, p. 154 f. ( Digitized version ).
  8. ↑ Hans Knudsen :  Crelinger, Sophie Auguste Friedrike, b. Düring, used Sting. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 406 f. ( Digitized version ).
  9. ^ Marriage announcement in: Staats- und schehre Zeitung des Hamburgischen impartial Correspondents No. 69, May 1, 1827.
  10. ↑ Cf. Patrick Wagner: Bauern, Junker und Officials. Local rule and participation in East Elbe in the 19th century. Wallstein: Göttingen 2005, p. 227 (limited preview in the Google book search).
  11. ↑ See the entry in the lost art database ( digitized version ).
  12. ↑ Hebbel wrote to Elise Lensing on July 1, 1840: “Mr. Crelinger can apply more to the son than to the husband of a woman in old age. He made a good impression on me personally. ”In other words: All works. Historical-critical edition. Ed. V. Richard Maria Werner . Third section: Letters Vol. 2, Berlin 1904, p. 78 ( digitized version ).
  13. ↑ Report on the first ordinary meeting in the Königlich-privilegirte Berlinische Zeitung von Staats- und Gelehrten Dinge (Vossische) No. 79, April 3, 1848 ( digitized version ).
  14. ↑ Cf. Gerhard Fischer: "The skies of the time could no longer be blocked off." The beginnings of politically organized liberalism in Berlin , in: Berlinische Monatsschrift 1997, issue 9, p. 14 ( digitized version ).
  15. ↑ Robert Prutz: In memory of Ludwig Crelinger. In: Deutsches Museum Vol. 3, No. 8, February 17, 1853, pp. 286 –288 ( digitized version ).
  16. ^ Kurt Hamann (head), Wolfgang Knochenhauer (contributions): Hundred Years of Viktoria Insurance - 1853–1953. Berlin 1953, p. 8.
  17. ↑ Peter Koch: Pioneers of the insurance concept. 300 years of insurance history in life pictures 1550-1850 . Business publisher Gabler, Wiesbaden 1968, p. 303 .
personal data
SURNAME Crelinger, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker and pioneer in the insurance industry
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1874 or May 18, 1874
Place of death Berlin