Moritz von Cohn
Baron Moritz von Cohn ( born September 19, 1812 in Wörlitz, † April 29, 1900 in Dessau ) was a German private banker Jewish faith.
As the owner of a Dessau private bank, he became the court banker of Anhalt Dukes and managed beyond over several decades and the personal assets of the Prussian crown prince and later emperor Wilhelm I. Moritz von Cohn also became known as the capital of strong financier at this time developing railway earned in Germany.
Family
Moritz von Cohn was born as Moses Cohn, son of a Jewish merchant Izzy Moses Hirsch Cohn from Wörlitz and his wife Marianne Nathan. The Christian name Moritz, he participated in until later. From the marriage with Charlotte Wolff, daughter of Jewish banker Abraham Hirsch Wolff from Bonn, daughter Julie came out, who was born in 1839 in Berlin.
Life
1817 pulled father Izzy H. Cohn with his family from Worlitz to Dessau. There he opened the same year with the Duke's approval as an " I. H. Cohn " firmiertes pawnshop. For the tenth anniversary of the Leihhauses joined the fifteen year old Moritz Cohn in 1827 in the banking business of his father apprenticed one. In 1830 he became a partner. Moritz Cohn had begun his education in the Dessau Francis School, which was later converted to one of the first business schools in Germany.
As the future owner of the company he should major banking houses to get to know outside of Dessau. Therefore it sent Izzy H. Cohn 1837 several trips that should lead him to the influential German and foreign banking houses. The aspiring banker tied in the course of this business profound financial contacts and connections among other things to the Frankfurt banking houses of Rothschild and Bethmann and Gebr to Sal Oppenheim of Cologne. He participated in 1839 intensively on the shops of his father and gained in the financial world increasingly reputation as a private banker and railway financier. In 1850, Cohn took over completely the direction of his father banking house and this led to his death.
Since 1878, Cohn was a member of the Berlin Society of Friends.
Due to the commercial success of the Cohn family's small provincial bank IH Cohn of Dessau was known far beyond the borders of Anhalt addition. The considerable fortune, which Baron Moritz von Cohn of his childless daughter Julie Cohn - Oppenheim left behind after his death, this is used mainly for generous charitable foundations in the region of Anhalt.
Private and court banker in Anhalt
With the aim to improve the financial situation in the lower and middle classes, the state government of Anhalt- Dessau in 1833 founded a ducal savings bank system, with its concession, the Bank IH Cohn 1834-1865 was commissioned. In her role as the Duke ordered the administrator of the Savings Bank business was able to successfully Cohn to make a name for himself as a serious and profitable financial institution.
Through this activity, a close relationship between the banking family Cohn and the ducal government of the State of Anhalt- Dessau developed. In special financial matters you now turned mainly to the banking house IH Cohn. Especially Moritz Cohn, who was in 1850 proclaimed the Duke's court banker, it solidified the reputation of an estimable banker of the Duke and support to be the financial economy of the state.
Thus, for example in 1854 a large debt burden of the government fund, which was created with the extinction of the line of Anhalt- Köthen and their takeover by Anhalt- Dessau, be repaid by generous loans from Moritz Cohn. On the occasion of an economic crisis commissioned Duke Leopold IV in 1857 his court banker with the purchase of a million loan to preserve the ducal Landesbank before the bankruptcy. With Cohn's financial resources, the Institute could be rehabilitated by 1863.
Private and court banker in Prussia
In the turmoil of the March Revolution of 1848 succeeded Moritz Cohn, to win the favor of the later German Emperor William I, and to recommend a loyal, monarchy loyal ally. The banker had been two years earlier made the then Crown Prince on the recommendation of living in Dessau Prussian Lieutenant General Count Wilhelm Ludwig Viktor Henckel von Donnersmarck first announced.
With the assistance of Duke Leopold IV of Anhalt Dessau entrepreneurs financed a two-month stay in England, the Prince had to compete on the orders of his brother and King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, immediately after the Berlin barricades of 1848, according to headlong flight.
Then basing, an intense relationship of trust that Moritz Cohn for private asset managers of the High incher could be developed. In recognition of the services rendered named him William, shortly after his accession to the throne as the Prince Regent in 1859, officially to the court banker of the Prince of Prussia. In this role, he oversaw petitions and credit inquiries to the regent, put that cash and letters of credit for travel and charitable donations available and wrapped from extensive acquisitions of the ruler. As William's longtime Privy Purse succeeded Cohn, in particular through securities speculation to increase the imperial private assets considerably.
Cohn finally also managed the financial discount given by the emperor left behind after his death on March 9, 1888, took over in trust of William the financial affairs of his son Frederick III. , The subsequent German Emperor and King of Prussia, however, only three months reigned.
Railway financier
With the establishment of the first German railway lines from 1835 the railway age began in Germany. In the following years, extensive private and public expenditures have been made to expand throughout the route network of the railway in Germany. It mainly Jewish private bankers involved considerable investment in the realization of numerous railway construction, without which the German railway network not in the extent and speed could be built.
The Cohn took part in the economic development of the railway business and entered as a railroad financiers in appearance. Especially Moritz Cohn made as a business partner and banker that the bank IH Cohn could significantly contribute to the financing of the construction and operation of the Thuringian Railway, the Werra Railway Company and partly to the Magdeburg- Halberstadt railway. Cohn's work as a financier of the Thuringian Railway Company and its related services for the procurement of large amounts of investment were finally motive for his Baronisierung.
Honors
The number of medals and titles that got Baron Moritz von Cohn of German dynasties is great. This mainly includes Anhalt and Prussian honors but also high honors from other German princes. So the banker received for his achievements alone six large crosses, which were considered the highest honors of the rulers. To this extent, only a few high government officials and the military were honored.
In 1889 he received the rarely awarded Grand Cross with diamonds in the Order of the Lion Zähringerplatz
In recognition of his services to him numerous titles were awarded in the course of his career. When he was appointed in 1892 as an honorary citizen of the city of Dessau, at the same time he held the title: Secret Fiscal Council of Anhalt, Privy Council and Privy Sachsen-Coburg/Gotha Oberfinanzrat of Prussia. Already in 1869 he had been raised by the construction of railways, by Duke Ernst II of Saxe -Coburg and Gotha, and last but not least, at the behest of William I, the hereditary Saxon nobility basis of merit.