Otto Georg Oppenheim

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Otto Georg Oppenheim (born May 2, 1817 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † November 27, 1909 in Berlin ) was a German lawyer and senior tribunal councilor .

Life

origin

His father was Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim (1781–1863), partner in the Königsberg banking house Oppenheim & Warschauer, who had converted from the Jewish to the Christian faith. His mother was Rosa, b. Alexander, after whom the Villa Rosa in Dresden was named.

Career

Otto Georg attended the Altstädtisches Gymnasium zu Königsberg, Pr. , Graduated from high school in 1835, studied law at the Friedrichs-Wilhelms-Universities in Bonn and Berlin and entered the Prussian judicial service as an auscultator in 1838. He worked as a judge at various Prussian courts and finally in 1873 became senior tribunal advisor at the Prussian upper tribunal , the Berlin-based highest court in Prussia . Politically he was a liberal and linked to the Progressive Party .

In 1843 he married Margarethe (1823–1890), daughter of the banker Alexander Mendelssohn , partner in the private bank Mendelssohn & Co. , and great-granddaughter of the Berlin enlightener Moses Mendelssohn . The Otto Georg Oppenheim family initially lived in Berlin at Behrenstrasse 67 before Oppenheim worked at the Stettin Court of Appeal from 1863–1868. After returning to Berlin, the Oppenheims lived initially at Leipziger Strasse 9 and later for many years at Alsenstrasse 12, not far from the Reichstag.

Villa Oppenheim

In 1845, his father-in-law Alexander Mendelssohn acquired the property in the former Scharrenstrasse 23-27, today Schloßstrasse 55, in Charlottenburg and converted the modest buildings there into his summer residence, the "Villa Sorgefrei". After the death of both parents in 1880, the second oldest daughter Margarethe and her husband Otto Georg Oppenheim inherited the property. In 1881 they had the architect Christian Heidecke replace Mendelssohn's “Villa Sorgefrei” with a representative three-storey new building in the neo-Renaissance style , today's “ Villa Oppenheim ”, and added a stable and coach house, a wooden bowling alley, a garden hall and two greenhouses. Until the death of Otto Georg Oppenheim in 1909, it was used as the lawyer’s retirement home and as the summer residence of the descendants. The house was very spacious and apparently designed in the first place to accommodate many family members. Otto Georg Oppenheim himself lived in the middle part of the house, his eldest son, the banker Hugo Oppenheim , with his family in the left wing, and other family members were accommodated in the right wing, which consisted of two apartments. On behalf of the heirs, Hugo Oppenheim sold the house and property to the city of Charlottenburg in 1911.

Otto Georg Oppenheim had always been aware of the obligation of his wealth and was famous at the time for his commitment to the poor: he had given instructions to give every beggar at the door of the summer residence a mark , which led to unmanageable queues until the police him asked to find other ways to support the poor. He sponsored the first hospital in Charlottenburg on the corner of Kirchstrasse and Wallstrasse, today Gierkezeile and the corner of Zillestrasse, and the construction of a home for older, single women, the Mariannenstift, which his in-laws founded in 1870.

Otto Georg Oppenheim died in 1909 at the age of 92, survived his wife Margarethe by nineteen years and was buried next to his wife in the Jerusalem and New Cemetery in front of the Hallesches Tor . The large family grave was destroyed during the construction of Blücherstrasse in the 1960s.

family

Otto Georg Oppenheim and Margarethe Oppenheim, b. Mendelssohn, had seven children:

  • Elisabeth (Else) Rosa Marianne Oppenheim (1844–1868) ⚭ 1867 Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy the Elder (1841–1880), chemist (first marriage)
  • Margarete Marie Oppenheim (1845–1847)
  • Hugo Oppenheim (1847–1921), banker ⚭ his cousin Anna Rosa Oppenheim (1849–1931), daughter of the banker Rudolph Oppenheim
  • Rosa (Rose) Enole Henriette Oppenheim (1849–1933) ⚭ Heinrich George August Paul Steffen (1834–1896), officer
  • Franz Oppenheim (1852–1929), chemist and industrialist, mainly working for the Agfa company ⚭ 1) 1881 Elisabeth Wollheim (1858–1904); ⚭ 2) 1907 Margarete Eisner, widowed Reichenheim (1857–1935)
  • Enole Margarethe Alexandrine Oppenheim (1855–1939) ⚭ 1873 Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy the Elder ( see above , in second marriage)
  • Clara (Cläre) Margarethe Oppenheim (1861–1944) ⚭ 1880 Adolf Gusserow (1836–1906), gynecologist

Works

  • 1860 Thomas Erskine May: The English Parliament and its procedure. A practical manual. Translated from the 4th edition published in 1859 and edited by Otto Georg Oppenheim ; Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn 1860, 592 pages (2nd edition 1880, 687 pages)
  • 1867 Thomas Erskine May: Rules of the House of Commons when dealing with public affairs , translated by Otto Georg Oppenheim; Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn 1867, 110 pp.

literature

  • Felix Gilbert : Years of Apprenticeship in Ancient Europe. Memoirs 1905–1945. Siedler Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-88680-167-5
  • Sebastian Panwitz: Otto Georg Oppenheim and Margarethe Oppenheim, b. Mendelssohn; in: Mendelssohn Studies 18 (2013), pp. 309–319.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German biography: Otto Georg Oppenheim
  2. ^ Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, I. HA, Rep. 97a, No. 293 (Oppenheim personnel file, Secret Obertribunalsrat, Vol. 1, 1838–1870).
  3. ↑ Carefree. The Mendelssohn and Oppenheim families in Charlottenburg , on Berlin.de, accessed July 10, 2015.
  4. ^ Villa Oppenheim
  5. ^ Announcement of the Association for the History of Berlin, founded in 1865, 92nd volume, January 1996: The Oppenheims
personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Otto Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oppenheim, Otto George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and senior tribunal councilor
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1909
Place of death Berlin