Municipal lending office Mannheim

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Lending Office Mannheim (2016)

The Mannheim Municipal Loan Office is the only public loan office in Germany. It is located in the squares of Mannheim city ​​center in D 4, 9-10.

Mannheim lending office, stairwell (2008)

history

Foundation and first decades

The old department store, the first location of the lending office. Engraving by the Klauber brothers, around 1780, MARCHIVUM

On the New Year of 1810 the first “municipal pawnshop” in Mannheim was opened. The city belonged to the Grand Duchy of Baden since 1803 ; the new sovereign, Grand Duke Karl Friedrich , was open to the establishment of public pawnshops. He had already approved the institution on June 17, 1809 - its classification as a communal or state institution was decided much later in 1975 in favor of the city. Mannheim was given a facility that would counteract the city dwellers' lack of money and soon also function as the first savings bank .

The pawnshop was initially housed in the rooms of the old department store in N 1.

Mannheim pawn ticket form 1810

Already in 1827 one moved u. a. Due to a lack of space in the specially acquired domicile in E 5, 16. Increasing space requirements, durability and insect problems (with textile pawns) and private abuse of the pawn shop should accompany the history of the house from that early period to the 20th century.

Empire

Mannheim experienced accelerated growth in the 19th century into a large city characterized by trade and industry with a good 140,000 inhabitants around 1900. Economic growth and the social problems associated with it are also reflected in the history of the lending office. The strong expansion of the business volume went with a nationwide top position in the so-called weekly deposit, the deposit type v. a. of the poorest strata. The move to the Zeughaus (C 5) in 1904 brought an urgently needed expansion of storage capacities . Since 1893, proof of an existing need had to be provided for a loan deal, which brought the end of private pawnbrokers and a monopoly position for the local public institution. Further competitive advantages, for example over the Heidelberg competition, resulted from the anonymity principle that applied in Mannheim from the start. New official collection points for pledges were supposed to relieve the head office and counteract improper intermediary agencies. With a total turnover in pawns of 421,673 pieces and a credit volume of 1,236,270 marks, the Mannheim lending office approached the height of its activity in 1910.

First World War and Weimar Period

With the outbreak of the First World War , the pawn shop of the Mannheim rental company sank continuously; the low point was reached around 1917 and 1918. The increase in value of the pledged goods suggests an increasing number of medium-sized customers. The financial and economic calamities of the 1920s also left their mark on Mannheim. While inflation led to the temporary closure of the Mannheim lending office in 1923, the global economic crisis resulted in a slump in sales at the beginning of the 1930s.

National Socialism

In August 1936, the Mannheim lending office moved again to a five-story building on “Platz des 20. Januar” (today Georg-Lechleiter- Platz). Such an institution offered the best starting points for the propagandistic misrepresentation of history by the National Socialists against the supposedly fattening, predatory Jewish vultures. The regime also made practical use of the public pawn shops for racial persecution measures as part of the “precious metal campaign” in 1939. An ordinance of December 3, 1938 forbade Jews to buy, sell and move gold , silver and platinum as well as precious stones and pearls . Only “public purchasing agencies” were authorized to acquire such materials from Jewish hands; the public pawn shops acted as such. An interim balance as of March 31, 1939 records 1,542 such severance payments in the Mannheim lending office with a payment amount of 149,611 Reichsmarks . After 1945, politics and courts dealt with the actual scope of action of the officials entrusted with the action on site, the liability of the offices and the compensation for those affected. The Second World War led to a noticeable drop in sales. Finally, in September 1942, Allied bombers turned the lending office into a ruin. The bulk of the pledges were destroyed.

After 1945

After the currency reform , growing credit requirements and increasing inquiries led to the reopening of the Mannheim lending office on October 19, 1950 in C 7. High fees, difficult coming to terms with the past and the old issue of lack of space accompanied the history of the institution in the 1950s. New private competition also bothered her. Not least because of pressure from the sister institutes, the traditional anonymity principle had to be abandoned. In 1965 there was an unrestricted identification requirement. Balance sheets and stock items from the Mannheim lending office can be read as a mirror of economic phases and social trends in the Federal Republic . While z. B. the slump in offset in 1957 u. a. Going back to the great pension reform , the general lockout in the metal industry of North Württemberg-North Baden in May 1963 revived the public pawnbroking business. The fact that the federal German affluent society brought fewer and fewer pawns to the lending office and delayed them more and more often or not at all, instead giving preference to new ones, brought the institute to the brink of closure several times in the 1970s. But the balance sheet recovered. Textiles or household goods were no longer used as backfill goods, but the products of increasing living standards such as jewelry , cameras, carpets, furs or technical equipment.

literature

  • Karl Obser: A diary of Margrave Karl Friedrich from 1764 . In: New Archive for the History of the City of Heidelberg and the Rhenish Palatinate , No. 9, 1911, pp. 224–246.
  • Ulrich Nieß and Michael Caroli (eds.): History of the City of Mannheim , Volume 2, 1901–2014, Heidelberg a. a. 2007.
  • Carl-Jochen Müller: The large cupboard from Mannheim. From the chronicle of the municipal loan office . (= Small Writings of the Mannheim City Archives , Volume 24), Mannheim 2009.

Web links

Commons : Leihamt Mannheim  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.mannheim.de , Municipal Loan Office Mannheim
  2. ↑ K. Obser (1911), p. 233.
  3. ↑ State Archive Baden-Württemberg - General State Archive Karlsruhe 206/2599.
  4. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 31.
  5. ↑ So also the Baden officials in their argumentation, cf. State Archives Baden-Württemberg - General State Archives Karlsruhe 213/3557.
  6. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 21.
  7. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 21 and 24.
  8. ↑ See Müller (2009), pp. 25f., With impressive examples.
  9. ↑ History of the City of Mannheim, Vol. 2 (2007), p. 591.
  10. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 32f.
  11. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 37.
  12. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 32.
  13. ↑ Municipal Archives Heidelberg, UA 142/6.
  14. ↑ On the basis of the revised statutes of 1897, eight collection points were initially set up, and by 1909 14 collection points, cf. Müller (2009), p. 38.
  15. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 43.
  16. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 44.
  17. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 49 and 51.
  18. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 52.
  19. ↑ NAZ Ludwigshafen from 14./15.9.1934.
  20. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 57.
  21. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 60; Landesarchiv Berlin B Rep. 142-07 4-10-3, No. 26.
  22. ↑ Müller (2009), pp. 65-69.
  23. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 60.
  24. ↑ Müller (2009), p. 63f.
  25. ↑ Müller (2009), pp. 63-71.
  26. ↑ Müller (2009), pp. 69-71.
  27. ↑ Cf. on this and the following Müller (2009) pp. 74–78.

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 19.8 ″  N , 8 ° 27 ′ 46.5 ″  E