The Bethmann family (; ) has been remarkable for the high proportion of its male members who succeeded at mercantile or financial endeavors. This family trait began in medieval northern Germany and continued with the Bethmann bank, which Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715–1793) and Simon Moritz Bethmann (1721–1782) founded in 1748 and soon catapulted into the foremost ranks of German and European banks. Even after the bank's sale in 1976, there are Bethmanns engaged in commercial real estate and forestry in the 21st century.
The most notable of the Bethmanns was Simon Moritz von Bethmann (1768–1826), a banker, diplomat, politician, philanthropist and patron of the arts. His sister Maria Elisabeth was the mother of Marie d'Agoult and the grandmother of Cosima Wagner; his sister Susanne Elisabeth was the great-grandmother of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who was chancellor of Germany from 1909 to 1917.
Beginnings in Goslar The Bethmann family, which produced the famous Bethmann banking dynasty, resided in Frankfurt am Main from the early 18th century onward.Herders Conversations-Lexikon, p. 517, volume 1 Earlier ancestors had come from the northern German town of Goslar.Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon, p. 899.Helbing, p. 27.Johann Philipp Freiherr von Bethmann, in Sarkowicz, p. 58.Klötzer 1994, p. 62. Wolfgang Klötzer was the deputy head of the Frankfurt Historical Institute from 1960 to 1983 and served as its head from 1983 until 1991. There – as burghers but not feudal nobility – the Bethmanns were among the upper crust of urban families. As such, they were entitled to delegate representatives to the town council and to bear a coat of arms; the earliest mention of the Bethmann name in Hanseatic Goslar – in the registrum parochianorum, a compendium on wax tablets of the town's parishioners – dates back to a Heinrich BethmannDie Grenzboten, 1878, p. 493. in 1416.Klötzer 1994, p. 62. The surname "Bethmann" likely was an occupational name (like "Bäcker"/"Baker") given to collectors of the , a tax requested () from freemen in the Middle Ages.
Subsequently, other Bethmanns – a Tile, a Bartold, a Hans and an Albrecht – appear in the records of Goslar, as owners of houses on Stonestrate and Korngasse, and as witnesses in the sale of houses. Another Tile buys a house on Knochenhauerstraße in 1492, serves on the town council, and is mentioned ten times between 1503 and 1520 as Munteherr, the title of an official responsible for minting of specie and weighing the metals produced from mining.
In 1512, Henning Bethmann, the great-great-grandfather of Konrad Bethmann, is accepted into the merchants' guild. In 1515, he is appointed Tafelherr, i.e. the councillor responsible for the town finances; this is followed by appointments to the posts of Munteherr in 1528, Kistenherr in 1538, and in 1548 supervisor of the vitriol works that extracted copper vitriol from ore. A Bartoldt Bethmann sold a house on Piepmäkerstraße in 1548 and another on Glockengießerstraße in 1566.Magin, p. 95.
Henning's grandson Hieronymus is recorded in 1590 as a member of the merchants' guild; four years later, he married Ilsebey Drönewolf in St. Stephan's church.Helbing, p. 28. Hieronymus served as chairman of the merchants' guild, as Kornherr responsible for grain stocks, town councillor, member of the Sechsmann inner council and finally of the Neuer or governing council. Hieronymus died as the Swedes were entering Goslar. The town never fully recovered from the ransacking and pillaging of the Thirty Years' War, especially the three years of Swedish occupation.
Some of the 19th century literature incorrectly claimed that the family had originated in the Netherlands.Dietz, p. 621. The family assigned its archives in 1965 to the city of Frankfurt.Klötzer 1985, p. 60. The Bethmanns' archival materials occupy some 300 meters of shelf space, and the oldest document therein is a calligraphed agreement dated 29 May 1321, regulating traffic on the street between the Basler Hof property, which the Bethmanns purchased in 1762, and a neighboring house.Institut für Stadtgeschichte Bankhaus Gebrüder Bethmann, (W1/9)
Coat of arms
The Bethmann family's coat of arms can be traced to 1530. On the dexter side of a split shield, half an eagle in black is displayed against a golden background, while the sinister side displays two diagonal red bars against a silver background.Neues deutsches Adels-Lexicon, p. 388. At a later date, the motto tuebor (Latin for "I shall protect") was added.
To Nassau and Aschaffenburg
Konrad Bethmann (sometimes spelled "Conrad") (1652–1701) was born in Goslar as the seventh child of the merchant Andreas Bethmann, four years after the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War.Helbing, p. 26. Much of Germany then was a patchwork of small to medium-sized jurisdictions. While this factor impeded development towards a nation-state, it ensured plentiful job opportunities for ambitious bureaucrats and entrepreneurs.
Konrad left his hometown for an apprenticeship in Eisleben. He served as Münzwardein in Dömitz (Mecklenburg),Joseph & Fellner, p. 391. then was appointed in 1683 Münzmeister to the Princess of Nassau-Holzappel in Cramberg on the Lahn river,See also Map with Holzappel close to the left-hand edge, some 40 miles northwest of Frankfurt; and photographs of memorial to the Princess in Charlottenberg, a small village near Holzappel. followed by his appointment in 1687 as Münzmeister (Master of the Mint) to the Teutonic Knights in Friedberg, and in 1692 as Münzmeister for the Archbishopric and Electorate of MainzAschaffenburg on French map dated 1681, within "[ARCHEVESCHE ET] ESLECTORAT DE M[AYENCE]" in Aschaffenburg.
He bequeathed a substantial fortune to his widow, Anna Elisabeth (1654–1727), whom he had married in 1678.Helbing, p. 123. She was a native of the northern German town of Minden, where the church of St Simeon, Protestant since 1529, and the Roman Catholic monastery of St Maurice stand side by side to this day.Article by Dr. Hans Nordsiek , former director of the municipal archives of Minden This may explain why in subsequent generations, there was always one son named "Simon Moritz".In contrast, Helbing (at p. 123) quotes Bethmann family lore to the effect that the frequency of "Simon Moritz" in the family was to remember a religious foundation in Minden dedicated to Saints Maurice and Simon.
As a Protestant, the widowed Anna Elisabeth and her children left the Archbishopric for the Lutheran city of Frankfurt am Main; there she found it easier to comply with her religious obligations and benefited from the presence of relatives. Three of her daughters married citizens of Frankfurt. Her son Simon Moritz Bethmann (1687–1725) served the House of Nassau-Weilburg as an Amtmann or bailiff-magistrate, in Bergnassau on the river Lahn.
This Simon Moritz Bethmann had three sons: Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715–1793), Johann Jakob Bethmann (1717–1792) and Simon Moritz Bethmann (1721–1782).
Founding of the bank
Upon the death of Simon Moritz Bethmann in 1725, his widow Elisabeth Bethmann, formerly Thielen (1680–1757), returned to Frankfurt, where she became housekeeper in the household of her brother-in-law, the merchant Jakob Adami (1670–1745).According to most sources. In contrast, Klötzer names a Johann Adami as the uncle, but that appears unlikely (see, for example, this webpage on the Adami family maintained by the Peterskirchhof cemetery in Frankfurt where Adamis and Bethmanns lie buried; clearly Jakob Adami was the uncle who made the bequest to his nephews and Johann was a cousin of Jakob.) In his will, he bequeathed to his nephews half of his fortune. Johann Philipp and Simon Moritz took control of the Jacob Adami trading enterprise, out of which in 1748 the banking enterprise of Gebrüder Bethmann developed. This eventually became the House of Bethmann.Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 2, pp. 574–576. Johann Jakob – the middle brother – established a trading branch in Bordeaux. Later he became the imperial consul in Bordeaux and founded the Bordeaux branch of the family, which continues to this day.Klötzer 1994, p. 63.
Within a short span of time, the Bethmann bank developed into one of Frankfurt's leading Christian-owned banks, on a scale comparable only to its younger rival, the House of Rothschild. The bank's fortunes began to rise in 1754 based on its business in imperial, princely and municipal bonds and skyrocketed from 1778, thanks to the bank's innovation in breaking the amount borrowed by the Austrian emperor200,000 guldens, according to Wanner (2005) in Handelsblatt, 20,000 according to Ferguson (1995) down into "sub-bonds" (Partialobligationen) at 1000 guldens eachFerguson, p. 40; in contrast to German writers, who cite this as a Bethmann innovation, Ferguson writes that the method was imported from Amsterdam. offered to the public,Wanner 2005 which made them tradeable in secondary markets. This transformed the bank from a lender to an underwriter of bond issues. At one point, the profits of Gebrüder Bethmann exceeded those of all its Frankfurt competitors put together, and it ranked first among all German banks.
Simon Moritz, a major donor to Frankfurt's Citizens' Hospital, died without issue, but the marriage in 1762 between his elder brother Johann Philipp and Katharina Margarethe Schaaf (1741–1822), daughter of the Frankfurt notable Anton Schaaf, produced six children, four of whom survived to adulthood:
Susanne Elisabeth (1763–1833) was married in 1780 to the Frankfurt merchant Johann Jakob Hollweg (1748–1808), who changed his name to Bethmann-Hollweg upon marriage. Her son Moritz August would become a Prussian minister of state, and his grandson in turn was Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who served as Imperial German Chancellor from 1909 to 1917.Klötzer 1994, p. 66. Simon Moritz (1768–1826) was among the most notable of Frankfurt's bankers, statesmen and philanthropists. Maria Elisabeth (1772–1847) was married in 1790 to the banker Johann Jakob Bußmann (1756–1791). Widowed only a year later, she remarried, this time to émigré French aristocrat Alexandre Victor Francois Vicomte de Flavigny (1770–1819). Her daughter from the second marriage was Marie d'Agoult (1805–1876), who in turn gave birth to several children, among them—from her liaison to Franz Liszt –- Cosima Wagner (1837–1930). Sophie Elisabeth (1774–1862).
First families of Frankfurt In Frankfurt, the beginnings of an independent polity date back to the grant of privileges to its citizens by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II in 1217.Die Macht der Patrizier , Frankfurter Rundschau Online Not long after, an upper crust of burgher families began to constitute itself. To them were reserved seats on the town council, which were passed on by inheritance to the sons of the council members. This clique of generally wealthy families was called Patricians, after the patricii ruling families of ancient Rome. Some of these patrician families, like the Holzhausens, had an unbroken run of sixteen generations on the town council from the 13th to the 18th century. As the daughter of a Kaiserlicher Rat and Schöffe, Katharina Margarete Schaaf gained her husband Johann Philipp access to Patrician society; she was on familiar terms with the mother of Goethe and, even after she was widowed, maintained a respected salon where she received Madame de Staël in 1808.
By 1816, when Frankfurt's new constitution abolished the privilege of heritable office for the Patrizier, the cachet of belonging to one of their societies had already become much less significant.
A man in full – pragmatic and enlightened