Kilian von Steiner
Kilian von Steiner ( born October 9, 1833 in Laupheim as Kilian Steiner, † September 25, 1903 in Stuttgart ) was a German banker and patron. He is regarded as the driving force behind the foundation of the Württemberg Vereinsbank in 1869, which was involved under his leadership in the founding of other banks. Steiner was also interested in literature played a major role in the founding of the National Schiller Museum in Marbach and the Swabian Schiller association.
Life
Background and education
Steiner came from the Jewish community in Laupheim. He was the eighth of twelve children of Victor Steiner (1790-1865) and Sophie née Reichenbach (1800-1866) from Hohenems in Vorarlberg. The father was initially peddlers, had founded after the emancipation laws of 1828 a leather shop and had become wealthy quickly, so that he could acquire the Schlossgut United Laupheim 1843 where he also still built a brewery.
Kilian attended the Jewish school in Laupheim, then high schools in Stuttgart and Ulm. Already during his school years in Stuttgart, he met his future wife Clotilde Bacher know. He studied law at the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg. In 1858 he graduated from the first state examination, after which he was a trainee at the Higher Regional Court in Ulm. In the fall of 1859, the second state examination followed.
Lawyer in Heilbronn
Already during his studies began lifelong friendships with the economist Gustav Schmoller and with the banker Georg Siemens. On Schmoller mediating between Steiner was still in 1859 as an attorney in Heilbronn down. There, he frequented the home Schmoller and was in contact with the prestigious families Feyerabend, butter sack and smoke, as well as Gustav von Württemberg Rümelin and the Finance Minister Adolf Goppelt. The traffic with the upscale Heilbronner circles, especially in Rauch'schen Palais, Steiner coined much. His circle of friends urged the unmarried to a wedding with Schmoller's sister Emma, what Steiner However, for religious reasons did not want to consider.
Political agitator in Stuttgart
1865 Steiner moved to Stuttgart. To his friends were there, the color traders and producers Gustav Müller and Gustav Siegle, the publisher of Adolf Kröner, the Draper Lorenz Chevalier, the insurance director Max Duttenhofer, the financier Edward Pfeiffer and continue Adolf Goppelt. Steiner was active in Stuttgart as an agitator and wrote political memoranda on economic policy. Along with his political friends Kilian Steiner was in 1866 one of the founders of the small German, oriented to Bismarck German Party in Stuttgart. In his political commitment for many of the later Steiner valuable business contacts go back. Several key partners, including financier Pfeiffer or family Kaulla, belonged to the arrivierten emancipated Jewish community in Stuttgart. Alfred Kaulla was Steiner's closest collaborator.
Economic strategist of the period
In 1869, Kilian Steiner was involved in the founding of the Württemberg Vereinsbank. The bank was in contrast to many after 1870 founded banking houses no incorporation of bankers, but (as Steiner put it himself in 1894 ) an association of local firms of trade and industry, which took place as an act of self-help of the local trade item. The banking establishment, which had an independent from external influences banking institution goal, was the logical consequence of the economic demands of the German Party. The " external influences", which were designed to prevent a self- Wuerttemberg Institute, lay not only in Europe, but in the time of the German states, especially in other German countries. In particular, the Württemberg Vereinsbank should in the case of the wool industry also Berlin, guarantee the independence of the Württemberg economy from the financial centers of Frankfurt and Augsburg. Other founders of the club bank included except Steiner and his friends Gustav Müller, Heinrich Siegle, Lawrence Chevalier and the brothers smoke from Heilbronn, also of Calw patrician tooth, the producer Zoeppritz from Heidenheim, the producer Laiblin from Pfullingen and the bankers Benedict from Stuttgart, Rümelin from Heilbronn and Lödel from Ulm. Steiner, from which the idea of the establishment of the Bank Association was out, was initially only Bank Counsel ( Counsel ), in 1870, but then appointed to the Supervisory Board and delegates from there to the Board. The rapid development of Vereinsbank was favored because the bank Benedict same time as the founding of the club bank went into liquidation in about and the club bank could take over most of the clientele of Benedict, as passed that within a three- quarter by the end of 1869 already over 430 accounts and already 6.5 million Mark credit on current account were set.
From Steiner and Vereinsbank numerous other start-ups went out. So was he or the club bank to the founding of the Württemberg Federal Reserve and the Stuttgart Gewerbekasse, the Deutsche Bank in Berlin, the Rheinische Credit Bank in Mannheim, the German Association Bank and Deutsche Effecten and Exchange Bank in Frankfurt, BASF, Daimler- Motoren-Gesellschaft in Untertürkheim and the Württemberg metal Goods factory ( WMF) in Geislingen involved in the crate. Again and again found these ventures of the period held together with the people from Steiner's radius, since the number of entrepreneurial and economic policy making actors in Württemberg at that time was still low. So the club bank board member Chevalier also sat on the board of WMF, Siegle had a majority shareholding and Board Chair at WMF, Steiner again sat on the board of Duttenhofers Rottweiler powder factory and worked with him in the conversion of Daimler in a corporation. Eduard Pfeiffer was Chairman of Vereinsbank and was instrumental in the founding of the Federal Reserve with.
The Württemberg Vereinsbank played under Steiner an important role in construction of the Anatolian railways, ie the lines of Ismid to Ankara and from Eskischehir to Konya, a major portion of the later Baghdad Railway. The Württemberg Vereinsbank was involved with 431 of 4500 shares in the construction company, Steiner and his confidant Kaulla privately owned additional shares. Steiner is regarded as one of the key minds behind the railway project, benefited from the numerous Württemberg companies, especially the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen. Steiner's confidant Kaulla conducted numerous negotiations on site.
Starting a family in 1869
On October 17, 1869 Steiner married his childhood friend Clotilde Goldschmidt born Bacher, forget the already widowed and mother of two daughters was. The couple had three more children: Victor (1870-1939), Luise (1872-1932) and Adolf Wohlgemuth ( called Mut) ( 1876-1957 ). The initial residences of the family are no longer identify clear. Probably Steiner had initially a service apartment with Vereinsbank, later a villa in the Goethe Street. 1877 acquired Steiner, Waldhaus in Niedernau as a country residence, in 1881 an estate in Kanzleistraße 34/Schloßstraße 26 in Stuttgart as a city apartment. In 1895 he also acquired the Laupheim castle, which had come from the legacy of the father of a brother and a brother-in- hand. The hospitality Steiner in all three residences has been widely praised, was nevertheless also part of based on personal friendships commercial relations of the period.
Social contacts
Because of its multiple obligations Steiner was a frequent business traveler, especially to Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna. In Berlin he met in addition to his business partners at Deutsche Bank numerous national-liberal politicians, including Karl von Varnbuler, Eduard Lasker, Alexander Levin Bennigsen and Ludwig Bamberger. In Frankfurt he had to do especially with the upscale Jewish economic middle class, ie with the families Goldschmidt, Hohenems, Ladenburg, Ellisen and Dreyfus. He also made the acquaintance with many well-known personalities, including with the entrepreneur Adelbert Delbrück, the painters Otto von Faber du Faur and Franz Lenbachplatz, the prelates of Gerok and Schmid, representatives of the Tübingen professors as well as the engineer Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin.
Not least, Steiner was varied literary interests and was in contact with Hermann Sudermann, Paul Heyse, Heinrich Leuthold, Wilhelm Raabe, Joseph Victor von Scheffel and Berthold Auerbach. Through personal involvement and foundations he also had large share in founding the National Schiller Museum in Marbach and the Swabian Schiller association.
Last years
1888 and 1890, Steiner was sick longer. Meanwhile, he had largely withdrawn from the daily business of the Stuttgart Vereinsbank, whose board he chaired continue. Even still belonged to a number of other supervisory boards. 1895 Steiner mentioned the first time that he was suffering from diabetes and therefore must continue to withdraw from the business. He devoted himself then amplified the expansion of Schlossguts in Laupheim. 1903 required the progressive sugar disease, the amputation of his left foot. Six days after the operation, he died of paralysis of the heart.