Moritz Leiffmann Explained

Moritz Leiffmann (2 February 1853 – 29 May 1921) was a German private banker, local politician, writer and art collector.

Life

Born in Unna, Leiffmann was the son of a Jewish saddler in the Westphalian Unna. He experienced social advancement as an authorised signatory (until 1888) and as a personally liable partner (until 1921) of the Düsseldorf banking house Bernhard Simons & Cie.founded on 13 October 1881,[1] which participated intensively in the development of the industrial centres on the Rhine and Ruhr by financing industrial projects and companies. The development of the bank into an important financial institution is primarily regarded as Leiffmann's work.[2] Through his involvement in the local politics of the city of Düsseldorf, where he served as a liberal city councillor, he contributed significantly to the economic and industrial development of the city, which became the "Schreibtisch des Ruhrgebiets".[3] From 1915 to 1918, he represented Düsseldorf in the Provincial Landtag of the Rhine Province.[4] Also as a promoter of social and artistic projects (for example, in 1899 as an initiator of the Goethe Festival in Düsseldorf,[5] as a sponsor of the Düsseldorf Mendelssohn monument erected in 1901,[6] as a member of the Board of Directors and Head of the Finance Committee for the Internationale Kunst- und Gartenbau-Ausstellung Düsseldorf 1904 (among others in Kunstpalast Düsseldorf)[7] and as donor of an inscription to the Nail Men erected in 1916 as a "war landmark" and the wooden sculpture by Johannes Knubel,[8] as a speaker and writer on economic and financial topics and as a poet and librettist of some works by Engelbert Humperdinck.[9] [10] Unlike Michael Simons (1817–1895), his senior partner in the bank, who played a significant role in the Synagogue community of Düsseldorf, Leiffmann - like many other representatives of the upper middle class - moved away from his Jewish religious roots,[11] although he himself continued to belong to the Israelite religious community. Leiffmann married Fanny Kaiser (1859-1932). His children, including Martha Leiffmann, born in 1874, who married doctor Peter Janssen in 1904.[12] married and gave birth to the later painter Peter Janssen in 1906, he was baptised Protestant. In 1910, he was awarded the title .[13]

Villa Leiffmann

At the turn of the century, the family gave up their rather modest domicile above the business premises of the banking house Bernhard Simons & Cie. (later B. Simons & Co.) in Düsseldorf city centre (Blumenstraße 19[14]) and moved into the stately "Villa Leiffmann", which was built in 1898 on the model of a Florentine Villa by the eclecticist Academy professor Adolf Schill and was built in the Golzheim district on a spacious site, between today's Theodor Heuss-Bridge, today's, and the Rhine.[15] [16] [17] The palatial villa surrounded by a park with curved paths, facing the Rhine with an imposing,[18] formed a "centre of glittering conviviality" until Leiffmann's death and was famous for its valuable furnishings, including a considerable art collection, which from November 1932, shortly after the death of Leiffmann's widow, was acquired by the gallerists Alfred Flechtheim, Hugo Helbing and Georg Paffrath by public auction.[19] [20] A few years before her death, probably in the mid-1920s, Fanny Leiffmann had given her son-in-law, doctor Peter Janssen, a plot of her villa property on the Rotterdamer Straße 40[21] (during the National Socialist era Ufer 104,[22] today Rotterdamer Straße 65), where Janssen had his own residential building built in 1926 by the architect, which is now a listed building. During the transformation of the north of Düsseldorf into the "Schlageter City", which the city and the Gauleitung Düsseldorf in the mid-1930s in the course of a personality cult around the Freikorp fighter Albert Leo Schlageter and an ambitious urban development policy to expand the "Gauhauptstadt Düsseldorf", the city acquired the villa site from Leiffmann's heirs for a very low purchase price in order to incorporate it into the development of the Reichsausstellung Schaffendes Volk and - within this urban development framework - into the construction of the national socialist model settlement called "Schlageter-Siedlung" (today "Siedlung Golzheim"); Villa Leiffmann, which had been vacant since 1932, was demolished in 1936 at the latest.[23] A wrought-iron garden gate grille from the villa, which had been acquired by the writer Herbert Eulenberg, was reused at the entrance to his estate "Haus Freiheit" in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth.[24]

Gravesite

Leiffmann died in Düsseldorf at age 68 and his wife was buried in the Jewish part of the Düsseldorf Nordfriedhof. The gravesite is marked by a simple tufa gravestone, probably designed by the sculptor Leopold Fleischhacker.[25]

Publications

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Gewerberegister III 16447, since 1942 .
  2. Barbara Suchy: Düsseldorf. In Ludger Heid, Julius H. Schoeps, Marina Sassenberg (ed.): Wegweiser durch das jüdische Rheinland. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, Berlin 1992,,

  3. Kleine Geschichte der Stadt Düsseldorf, 9th edition, Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, .

  4. http://docplayer.org/653334-Abgeordnete-der-rheinischen-provinziallandtage-1888-1933-nach-wohnorten.html Abgeordnete der Rheinischen Provinziallandtage 1888 1933 (after Wohnorten)
  5. , the public prosecutor Kretschmar and the theatre director, who directed the event organised by the Rheinischer Goetheverein für Festspiele in Düsseldorf until 1909. – cf. Walter Cohen: Gemälde alter und neuer Meister aus dem Nachlass Geheimer Kommerzienrat M. Leiffmann und aus deutschem Museums- und Privatbesitz. Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1932, forword (Numerized)
  6. Yvonne Wasserloos: Das Düsseldorfer Mendelssohn-Denkmal. Ort des Erinnerns und Bekennens. . [PDF ]
  7. [Heinrich Frauberger]
  8. http://www.duesseldorf.de/stadtarchiv/stadtgeschichte/daten/erinnerungsdaten_2011.shtml Düsseldorf, Erinnerungsdaten für das Jahr 2011
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20130630051405/http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/l/leiffmann/ Author: Moritz Leiffmann
  10. http://www.kammermusikfuehrer.de/werke/2849 Engelbert Humperdinck: Junge Lieder
  11. Barbara Suchy,
  12. Born in 1874, Peter Janssen was the eldest son of the academy director Johann Peter Theodor Janssen. He became a renowned surgeon. As such, he founded the Golzheimer Klinik,
  13. Leiffmann, Moritz. In Franz Brümmer Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig 1913, . (Numerized)
  14. http://adressbuecher.genealogy.net/entry/show/512412 Moritz Leiffmann Düsseldorf
  15. http://schaffendesvolk1937.de/das-ausstellungsgebiet-vor-der-erschliessung/vorhandene-bebauung-iii/ Die Bebauung auf dem späteren Ausstellungsgelände
  16. http://schaffendesvolk1937.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/A327-Villa-Leiffmann-vom-Rhein-aus-Q-privat.jpg Foto der Villa Leiffmann, vom Rhein aus aufgenommen
  17. http://schaffendesvolk1937.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/A326-Blick-über-den-Park-der-Villa-Leiffmann-Q-privat.jpg Foto Blick über den Park der Villa Leiffmann
  18. Elke Janßen-Schnabel: Düsseldorf. Denkmalbereich "Siedlung Golzheim". Gutachten gem § 22 zum Denkmalwert gem. § 2 DSchG NW. Pulheim 2011, .
  19. Walter Cohen: Gemälde alter und neuer Meister aus dem Nachlass Geheimer Kommerzienrat M. Leiffmann und aus deutschem Museums- und Privatbesitz. Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1932, Vorwort (Numerized)
  20. http://alfredflechtheim.com/handel/auktionen/ Kunsthändler der Avantgarde: Auktionen
  21. Rotterdamer Straße 40 E Janssen, Peter, Prof., Dr. med., Arzt, Adressbuch der Stadt Düsseldorf 1927 (uni-duesseldorf.de)
  22. Alte-Garde-Ufer 104 E Janssen, Peter, Prof., Dr. med., Arzt, Adressbuch der Stadt Düsseldorf 1939 (uni-duesseldorf.de)
  23. Stefanie Schäfers: Vom Werkbund zum Vierjahresplan. Die Ausstellung Schaffendes Volk, Düsseldorf 1937. (Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Niederrheins, vol. 4.) (Beiträge der Forschungsstelle für Architekturgeschichte und Denkmalpflege der Bergischen Universität–Gesamthochschule Wuppertal, vol. XI.) Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, (schaffendesvolk1937.de)
  24. Falk Wiesemann: Steiler Aufstieg ins Großbürgertum. Die Villa Leiffmann in Düsseldorf. In Kalonymos, Beiträge zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte aus dem Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-Institut, 3. Jahrgang 2000, Extrablatt, . (PDF)
  25. Falk Wiesemann,
  26. , retrieved 22 September 2021
  27. http://www.shz.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/panorama/kieler-woche-1914-der-kaiser-reist-ueberstuerzt-ab-id7021161.html Erich Maletzke: Kieler Woche 1914 – Der Kaiser reist überstürzt ab

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