Rebecka Dirichlet

Rebecka Mendelssohn, drawing by Wilhelm Hensel 1823

Rebecka Dirichlet, photo of a miniature painting by August Grahl , around 1832

Rebecka Henriette Lejeune Dirichlet , b. Mendelssohn (born April 11, 1811 in Hamburg , † December 1, 1858 in Göttingen ), was a German salonnière . She was the granddaughter of Moses Mendelssohn , daughter of Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn (Bartholdy) and younger sister of the musicians and composers Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel . She was married to the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and was the great-grandmother of the philosopher Leonard Nelson .

Life

Excerpt from the family tree of the Mendelssohn family with Rebecka Dirichlet on the wall of the permanent exhibition in the former chapel on the Trinity Cemetery I in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Due to difficulties with the French occupiers in Hamburg in connection with the continental blockade, the Mendelssohn family fled to Berlin in the spring of 1811, just a few weeks after Rebecka's birth , where the father continued the family bank with his older brother Joseph. Rebecka, who was affectionately called Beckchen, was brought up musically and took part as a singer in the family performances with the royal chapel at the court of Friedrich Wilhelm III. part that her brother Felix ran. In 1816 Abraham Mendelssohn had Rebecka and her siblings baptized as Protestants, with Rebecka being given the baptismal name Henriette . The parents converted six years later, adding the addition of Bartholdy to the family name .

On May 22nd, 1832, she married the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, who had been introduced into the Mendelssohn Bartholdy family by Alexander von Humboldt . They had four children, including the farmer Walter Lejeune Dirichlet (1833-1887) and Felix Lejeune Dirichlet (1837-1838), who died at the age of just over a year. Rebecka Dirichlet brought the mathematician into contact with the romantic musicians of the time, who frequented their homes and made music. Rebecka Dirichlet's cousin Ottilie, the daughter of Nathan Mendelssohn and Henriette, geb. Itzig, also married a mathematician, Ernst Eduard Kummer .

Grave site of Peter and Rebecka Lejeune Dirichlet in Göttingen

In 1855 the Lejeune Dirichlets moved from Berlin to Göttingen, where Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet succeeded Carl Friedrich Gauß . Karl August Varnhagen von Ense often came from Berlin and described the Lejeune Dirichlets house, the garden and its pavilion in his diaries. Rebecka Dirichlet died of a stroke on December 1, 1858, and her husband of heart disease on May 5 of the following year. The couple's grave in Göttingen is well preserved and is located in the Bartholomäusfriedhof . The square sandstone balustrade bears the inscription to the west:

Peter Gustav Lejeune-Dirichlet b. to Düren d. Feb. 13, 1805, d. To Göttingen the Elder May 5, 1859.

Rebecca Henriette Lejeune-Dirichlet born Mendelssohn-Bartholdi born. to Hamburg d. April 11, 1811 died at Göttingen d. 1. Decbr. 1858.

literature

• Julius H. Schoeps : The legacy of the Mendelssohns. Family biography. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-10-073606-2 .
• Albrecht Saathoff: Göttingen's cemeteries, the place of his great dead. Published by the city of Göttingen. Reise, Göttingen 1954, p. 10, photo after p. 8, fig. 3
• Eckart Kleßmann: The Mendelsohns. Pictures from a German family. Artemis and Winkler, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 3-7608-1020-9 , illustration on p. 95.

Web links

• Rebecka Lejeune Dirichlet, b. Mendelssohn Bartholdy - Short biography of Elke von Nieding (with picture)
• Mendelssohn Society