User:Goodmorningworld/Simon Moritz von Bethmann (1768-1826)

Timeline

1791 Is made partner in Gebrüder Bethmann

1793 Succeeds to sole directorship of the business, aged 25

1801 In Paris, learns that both Hesse and Kurmainz were intending to lay claim to the formerly church-owned territories and properties. In Regensburg, in negotiations at the Reichsdeputation, manages to secure ownership of the church-owned properties within the walls of the city of Frankfurt for the city, aided in part by lukewarm French support and in part by "greasing the wheels" in form of bribery.^[1] As a result of the combined efforts of Bethmann and others, the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803 preserved the status of an Imperial City subject only to the Emperor for Frankfurt.^[1]

1804 Napoleon – now Emperor – visits Mainz, berates the Frankfurt delegates, especially the bankers: "You are hiding English agents, agitators, who incite the continent. Your bankers, your scribblers are continually busy. You got off easy in the last war, but in the next war on the Continent – I hope it does not come to that – I will give you a good beating and hand you off to a neighboring Prince…" Soon enough Napoleon would make good on the threat.^[2]

Life

His enemies begrudged him his success at business and in matters of state. They opposed his proposal to establish a "Frankfurt bank" that was to promote the city's economy, insinuating that he had only his personal advantage in mind.^[3]^[4] The improvement in the condition of the Jews that followed in the footsteps of French occupation, and the introduction of active and passive voting rights for them under the rule of Karl von Dalberg raised the ire of many who disliked or hated the Jews. Simon Moritz' support of Jewish aspirations gave his hidebound enemies an additional lever for smearing him. They called him a "friend of the Jews" and made it sound like a personal failing.^[5] In a letter to the banker David Parish in Paris, Simon Moritz wrote in January 1818:

“

This is why they did not elect me to the legislative assembly of our republic, for which I am deeply grateful to my enemies: I know better uses for my time than to school our budding legislators and to correct their amateurish speeches.^[6]

”

The Stanhope affair

When discretion was called for, Simon Moritz knew how to be to discreet, and not just in weighty matters of state.

As related by Sylvia Goldhammer for the Institute of City History in Frankfurt, the story goes as follows.

Philipp Henry Earl of Stanhope (1781-1855) was a native Chevening (Kent). In 1801 he enrolled briefly in Erlangen (Germany) for university courses but returned soon afterward when his step-uncle took an interest in his training and education. Philip Henry was sent to the continent as a political "agent", a forward observer reporting on the machinations of Napoleonic France. From time to time he would stop over in Frankfurt, where he had occasion to meet leading Frankfurt personages such as the Staatsrat Simon Moritz von Bethmann. As a politician Stanhope left few traces in the history books. However, he played a part in an affair that intrigued the public throughout the 19th centuy: the case of Kaspar Hauser, who appeared mysteriously in Nuremberg in 1828 and died a violent death in 1833.

Stanhope stepped into Kaspar's life as a friend and (from 1831) foster parent. He generously supported the foundling and promised to take him with him upon his eventual return to England. But when Kaspar was murdered in December 1833, he shockingly denounced him as a fraud and suicide.

However, it was not in the affair of Kaspar Hauser that the good offices of Simon Moritz von Bethmann were required but in a delicate personal matter concerning Lord Stanhope.

The record has preserved eight letters from 1825, 1829, 1838 and 1840. In particular, two of the four letters addressed to Simon Moritz in 1825, whom he called his "father confessor", reveal a previously unknown aspect to Stanhope's life. (In 1838 he asked for the letters to be returned but Gebrüder Bethmann kept a copy for themselves.)

In 1822, during one of his many journeys through Germany Stanhope made the acquaintance of a young lady named Susanna Elisabeth Schüttler, a kept mistress ofa man who also beat her. He decided to support her financially so that she might go into business for herself as a milliner. In the course of events they became intimate. Schüttler soon ran up debts that compromised Stanhope and angered him with her fickleness. He terminated the relationship and demanded the letters back that he had written to her. Susanna Schüttler then blackmailed him into paying her an annuity under the condition that the letters would not see the light of day.

It was agreed in writing in 1826 that payments would be made through an intermediary, who was none other than Simon Moritz von Bethmann. In 1833 a legal dispute ensued between Susanna Schüttler and the heirs of Simon Moritz von Bethmann, who had died in 1826, because Lord Stanhope was no longer sending money. Thus a contract once made with Bethmann as a private individual became a matter for the bank to deal with. Dragged into court in 1835, Lord Stanhope claimed breach of contract based on disclosure of one of the letters. Susanna Schüttler denied this and cited her dire financial situation. Caught in the middle were Bethmann's heirs and the bank, who were mightily annoyed at Lord Stanope's obstinacy. At long last, after the death of Susanna Schüttler, a settlement was reached with her heir and the matter was closed.^[7]

In the judgment of historians

“

No Frankfurter acquired more merit in the service of his fellow citizens in the past century and a half, and none is held in such high esteem by them as Simon Moritz von Bethmann (…).

”

— Prof. Georg Ludwig Kriegk, historian of the city of Frankfurt (1863-1875)^[8]

Offices held and decorations received

1799
Member, citizens committee "of the 51"
1802
Russian consul
1807
Russian consul general to the Rheinbund
1808
Heritable nobleman, knighted by Emperor Franz I of Austria
1810
Russian Staatsrat: member of the Council of State appointed by Tsar Alexander I, his fellow citizens got used to calling him simply the Staatsrat
1817
Member, legislative assembly

Knight of the order of St. Vladimir Knight of the order of St. Anna and the Bavarian Crown Commander of the volunteer Landsturm cavalry-militia of Frankfurt am Main
Inspector of secondary schools and collegiate studies, administration of school fund

1816
Co-founder, Frankfurt Polytechnical Society
1817
Founding member, Senckenberg Nature Research Society

Sponsor, Frankfurt theater ensemble

1812
Inaugurated museum of antique sculpture, open to the public

Notes

^ ^a ^b Meinert, p.91.
^ Meinert, p.92.
^ Helbing, p. 40
^ Achterberg, p.35: "Wollen die Frankfurter nicht einsehen, dass ich mit Selbstverleugnung von einer höheren Stufe das Gesamtinteresse des hiesigen Commerzes ins Auge fasste, um zu diesem Institute zu raten, so kann ich nun vorurteilsfrei mich in ein egoistisches Verhältnis zurückziehen. Mein Beutel und meine Trägheit können dabei nur gewinnen."
^ Achterberg, p.38
^ Helbing, p. 39 sq: "Aus dieser Ursache wählten sie mich dieses Jahr nicht in die gesetzgebende Versammlung unserer Republik, wofür ich meinen Feinden großen Dank weiß, indem ich meine Zeit angenehmer und besser verwenden kann, als unsere angehenden Gesetzgeber zu schulen und ihre schülerhaften Reden zu berichtigen."
^ Institut für Stadtgeschichte with references.
^ Achterberg, p.37.

External links

Newsletter of Frankfurt Institute of City History on the Stanhope affair, author: Sylvia Goldhammer

Bibliography

Herders Conversations-Lexikon, vol. 1. Freiburg im Breisgau 1854
Neues deutsches Adels-Lexicon, Ernst Heinrich Kneschke (ed.), vol. 1. Leipzig 1859
Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 2, Leipzig 1875
Die Grenzboten: Zeitschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst, F. L. Herbig (publisher), 1878
Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon, Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna, 14th edition 1894-1896
Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, vol. 2, Leipzig 1905
Claus Helbing: Die Bethmanns. Aus der Geschichte eines alten Handelshauses zu Frankfurt am Main. Gericke, Wiesbaden 1948.
Alexander Dietz: Frankfurter Handelsgeschichte, Glashütten 1971, reprint of 1925 edition
Hermann Meinert: Frankfurts Geschichte, 1977 reprint of 1952 edition, Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-7829-0188-6
Erich Achterberg: Frankfurter Bankherren, second revised edition, Fritz Knapp Verlag (publishers), Frankfurt am Main, 1971. This book was published without an ISBN
Fritz Stern: Gold and Iron. Vintage, 1979, ISBN 978-039-474034-8
Erich Pfeiffer-Belli: Junge Jahre im alten Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Munich, 1986, ISBN 3-8090-2240-3
Hans Sarkowicz (ed.): Die großen Frankfurter, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, 1994, ISBN 3-458-16561-4
Wolfgang Klötzer (ed.), Sabine Hock and Reinhard Frost: Frankfurter Biographie: Personengeschichtliches Lexikon, Erster Band: A-L, Verlag Waldemar Kramer (publishers), Frankfurt am Main, 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3
Ralf Roth: Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main, doctoral thesis, University of Frankfurt am Main, 1996
Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich: Frankfurt as a Financial Center: From Medieval Trade Fair to European Banking Centre, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3406456715, Google Books Preview
Niall Ferguson: The House of Rothschild. Volume 1, Money's Prophets: 1798-1848. Penguin, 1999, ISBN 978-0140240849

[Mein91-1] Meinert, p.91.

[2] Meinert, p.92.

[3] Helbing, p. 40

[4] Achterberg, p.35: "Wollen die Frankfurter nicht einsehen, dass ich mit Selbstverleugnung von einer höheren Stufe das Gesamtinteresse des hiesigen Commerzes ins Auge fasste, um zu diesem Institute zu raten, so kann ich nun vorurteilsfrei mich in ein egoistisches Verhältnis zurückziehen. Mein Beutel und meine Trägheit können dabei nur gewinnen."

[5] Achterberg, p.38

[6] Helbing, p. 39 sq: "Aus dieser Ursache wählten sie mich dieses Jahr nicht in die gesetzgebende Versammlung unserer Republik, wofür ich meinen Feinden großen Dank weiß, indem ich meine Zeit angenehmer und besser verwenden kann, als unsere angehenden Gesetzgeber zu schulen und ihre schülerhaften Reden zu berichtigen."

[7] Institut für Stadtgeschichte with references.

[8] Achterberg, p.37.

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