Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow
Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow (partly also Otto Sigismund von Treskow ) (born March 16, 1756 at Gut Milow ; † February 6, 1825 at Owinsk Castle near Posen ) was a Prussian manufacturer, wholesale merchant and landowner.
origin
He was born the illegitimate son of Albert Sigismund von Tresckow (* 1717; † 1767). He was a privy councilor and former owner of Gut Milow in Havelland, which was already foreclosed at the time of his son's birth. The mother was Elisabeth Mangelsdorf (* 1726, † 1811), the daughter of a weaver. After giving up the estate management, the father moved to Halberstadt , where he had the right to live as a canon of the Liebfrauenstift. Elisabeth Mangelsdorf followed him with two children together and ran the household, another son who died early was baptized in Halberstadt.
Economic rise
Without inheritance rights, Otto Sigismund began an apprenticeship as a businessman in Bernburg after his father's death . He finished this in 1778. After a stopover in Leipzig , Treskow came to Berlin, where he worked as an accountant in a silk flower factory . He acquired citizenship in Berlin in 1781. Two years later, he founded his own factory for the production of silk flowers. A short time later he married Anna Sara George, the daughter of the wealthy distiller Benjamin George. With her he had seven sons and a daughter.
Treskow began trading in haberdashery, silk ribbons and fabrics for uniforms. In addition, he participated in various other profitable enterprises such as B. a sugar boiling plant. With the help of his father-in-law and good connections, especially with Hans Rudolf von Bischoffwerder , Treskow was able to develop into a supplier for the army and a wholesale merchant. For the uniforms he had delivered to the American Continental Army, George Washington mortgaged him large forests on the upper Mississippi . Despite the Revolution and the First Coalition War , during which Prussia fought against France, he supplied the French army from 1794 to 1796. He may have acted as a front man for Bischoffwerder, who himself had been the Prussian ambassador in Paris until 1794.
Social advancement
In 1796, Bischoffwerder enabled Treskow to acquire the rule of Strzelce in the province of South Prussia, which fell to Prussia after the partition of Poland . With considerable sums of money, he was elected canon of the St. Sebastian monastery in Magdeburg in 1796 . By accepting his father's sister into his household, he demonstrated his claim to be part of the von Tres (c) kow family . On January 14, 1797 he was elevated to the Prussian nobility in Berlin. This coincided with further business with the French revolutionary army. He delivered, again with the support of circles of the court, uniforms and horses worth 4 million francs. For this, the French government even had to pledge the diamond regent belonging to the French crown treasure to him for a time .
The ennoblement took place in anticipation of the transfer of the Owinsk monastery property near Posen in June 1797. Together with the property in Strzelce, Treskow now owned 20,000 hectares of land in the province of South Prussia. He commissioned Ludwig Catel and Karl Friedrich Schinkel with the construction of a new palace in Owinsk, which was built from 1804 to 1806 in the style of early Berlin classicism . He issued his own securities to finance the estate, which included ten outbuildings and numerous commercial buildings. Wilhelm von Humboldt alone invested 38,000 thalers in it. After the defeat of Prussia in 1806, the Treskow estates were now in the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw . Because of his previous business with the Directoire and personal acquaintance with Napoleon Bonaparte, he was not expropriated.
Envoy in Paris
On behalf of State Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg , Treskow was sent to Paris as an economic diplomat in the autumn of 1810 to negotiate with the Prussian tax officer in the office of State Chancellor Heinrich von Béguelin about the payment of contributions through the delivery of goods in kind and Prussian factory goods. Treskow had previously made important financial deals with the French Republic. That is why it was believed that they could now deal cheaply with Napoleon. During this time he lived in the vicinity of the imperial court and reported on his encounters in letters to Berlin. Treskow had asked for the wood deliveries to make money from his forests. But Béguelin talked him out of this, so Treskow left Paris when he saw that his time was just wasted. It was only on his second trip that Béguelin signed the convention of February 24, 1812. The contract stipulated that the gold contributions were converted into deliveries in kind. This convention was only partially implemented because of the later outbreak of war between Prussia and France.
After his return to Berlin Treskow sold his property there and moved entirely to his Owinsk estate.
Four of his sons established new lines of the von Treskow family.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Adolf Ernst: Memories of Heinrich and Amalie von Beguelin from the years 1807–1813. Along with letters from Gneisenau and Hardenberg. Berlin 1892, pp. 205ff Online: [1] and [2]
- ↑ Hans Haussherr: Beguelin, Heinrich von. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , 1 (1953), p. 747, online
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Treskow, Sigmund Otto Joseph von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Entrepreneurs and landowners |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 16, 1756 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Good Milow |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 6, 1825 |
| Place of death | Owinsk Castle |