David Justus Ludwig Hansemann (12 July 1790 – 4 August 1864) was a Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n politician and banker, serving as the Prussian Minister of Finance in 1848.

Life

Hansemann was born in Finkenwerder

Finkenwerder

Finkenwerder is a quarter of Hamburg, Germany in the borough Hamburg-Mitte. It is the location of a plant of Airbus and its airport...

, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, the son of a Protestant minister. After studying commerce, he was a representative for a Monschau

Monschau

Monschau is a small resort town in the Eifel region of western Germany, located in the district Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia.-Geography:The town is located in the hills of the North Eifel, within the Hohes Venn – Eifel Nature Park in the narrow valley of the Rur river.The historic town center...

 cloth manufacturer. From 1817, he created different enterprises in Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, under which the predecessor company the Aachen native of Munich, which is today part of the AMB Generali. Into the 1820s and 1830s, he came by a large sum of money. His concern for the well-being of his employees and his readiness for generous donations were considered unusual. In 1821 he married Fanny Fremery, who came from a French Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

 family.

David Hansemann engaged himself for the building of railways in the Rhine Province

Rhine Province

The Rhine Province , also known as Rhenish Prussia or synonymous to the Rhineland , was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822-1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg...

. He wrote several memoranda about railway. The moreover one he was shareholder of the Rhenish Railway Company

Rhenish Railway Company

The Rhenish Railway Company was along with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Foundation :The...

 (German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

: Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, RhE). In accordance with a royal cabinet order of February 1837, he became Vice-President of the RhE. He was considerably involved in the establishment of further railway companies, including the Cologne-Minden Railway Company

Cologne-Minden Railway Company

The Cologne-Minden Railway Company was along with the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company and the Rhenish Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia.-Founding :The founding of the...

 and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company.

During the 1830s, Hansemann became increasingly involved in politics, and in 1843, he became a member of the provincial parliament (Provinziallandtag) for Rhenish Prussia. In the year 1847, he became a member of the Prussian United Parliament (Vereinigter Landtag). Hansemann was considered as one of the prominent heads of German Liberalism

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

. Within liberalism, he, along with the later president of the Frankfurt Parliament

Frankfurt Parliament

The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany. Session was held from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main...

, Heinrich von Gagern

Heinrich von Gagern

Heinrich Wilhelm August Freiherr von Gagern was a statesman who argued for the unification of Germany.The third son of Hans Christoph Ernst, Baron von Gagern, a liberal statesman from Hesse, Heinrich von Gagern was born at Bayreuth, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in...

, belonged to the so-called "half ones", i.e. ready to compromise.

During the short-lived Prussian March Ministry under Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen

Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen

Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen In 1848, Ludolf Camphausen stepped suddenly from his banker's deskat Cologne to the presidential chair of the Ministry of State at Berlin,...

, Hansemann was made Minister of Finance. He retained this post in the next administration led by Rudolf von Auerswald

Rudolf von Auerswald

Rudolf Ludwig Cäsar von Auerswald was a German official who served as Prime Minister of Prussia during the Revolution of 1848....

, until his resignation on the 8th September, 1848.

For the noble elite of Prussia, Hansemann was considered far too liberal; his subtly critical book Prussia and France of 1833 and different memoranda from the 1840s lead him to be thought of as a dangerous radical. On the other hand, he was considered by radicals to be a reactionary serving the elite: Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 scornfully called him a "liberal lick-spittle."

This double resistance, a principal reason for the defeat of the liberalism after the March revolution in Germany, finally led to Hansemann leaving politics. After leaving political life, Hansemann returned to commerce, and in 1851 he formed the Disconto society, which merged with Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...

 in 1929.

Hansemann died in Schlangenbad

Schlangenbad

Schlangenbad is a community in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Location :The community, which is a health resort , lies above sea level in a sheltered location on a valley slope on the southern slope of the Taunus from Wiesbaden, from Eltville...

, during a cure stay in the Taunus. He is buried in the Hansemann mausoleum at the Matthaeus Kirchhof in the Schöneberg district of Berlin. His son Adolph von Hansemann

Adolph von Hansemann

Adolph von Hansemann was an Imperial German businessman and banker.- Life :Born in Aachen in 1826 to German banker and railroad entrepreneur David Hansemann, Adolph Hansemann developed an early interest in business administration. He left home for Hamburg in 1841...

became one of the richest and most important entrepreneurs of the German Reich, although in contrast to his father, he was not a liberal.

Quotations

(1847) before the Prussian united federal state parliament became famous: * "in financial matters the cosiness stops."

From a memorandum of 1840: * "many governing or interfering the public administration into too many articles became rule. They have the official itself the inclination unconsciously hang-give to decide or estimate rather after cheapness the most various articles, which will leave fueglich to the discretion of the private people and Korporationen could, in own opinion." * "so everyone is in principle unfreely and politically minor, and the large majority does not carry by any means an active for demand for formally secured [... ] this kind of satisfaction of the people pleases some official splendid and as proof is stated, like the Prussian conditions the safest and most satisfying in Europe nevertheless would be."

From a letter from 1839: * "with the conviction that, if I dedicated time and mental effort completely the business my fortune would amount to probably now the double, I work much in general affairs. I judge fortunes only as means, not purpose. This means brings independence, to calming for the life span and the ability to give and in addition useful expenditures to make be able to the children a good education."

External links

• The Aachener a hard High School over Hans man ' ' the High School donated of the Aachener and Munich insurance created by Hans man
• Marx über Hansemann
• David-Hansemann-Schule in Aachen
• Preußen-Chronik über Hansemann
• Die Deutsche Bank über Hansemann
• David Hansemann to Prussian Interior Minister Ernst von Bodelschwingh (March 1, 1848)