You are bidding on one handwritten, signed letter of the Jewish teacher, poet and literary historian Theodor Creizenach (1818-1877).

DatedFrankfurt, 21. Nov. 1866.

Transcription:"Dear Dr., Mr. Classen-Kappelmann from Cologne meets today at 2 ¾ 1:00 a.m. with me and stays until the departure of the night train to Berlin, which is two hours. He would certainly see it as the utmost kindness if you wanted to see him at my place, since it's impossible for him to get away. Needless to say, it would be a pleasure and an honor for me to greet you on this occasion. With the highest regard, Yours sincerely Th. Creizenach."

Johann Classen-Kappelmann (* 26. December 1816 in Sinzig; † 28 May 1879 in Cologne) was a German industrialist and liberal politician.

Scope:two of four pages written (20.8 x 13.7 cm).

Without envelope.

Condition: letter folded; Paper browned and somewhat stained, with small tears. please bealso pay attention to the pictures!

Internal note: EVS 2108-11 Judaica

aboveTheodor Creizenach and the JOhann Classen-Kappelmann (Source: wikipedia & ADB):

Theodor Creizenach (* 17. April 1818 in Mainz; † 6 December 1877 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German teacher, poet and literary historian.

Life and work: Creizenach was a son of the Jewish preacher and mathematician Michael Creizenach (1789-1842) and his wife Marianne, b. Haas (1788-1844). In 1825 his father was appointed as a teacher at the Philanthropin, which Theodor also attended at first. In 1829 he became a student at the Frankfurt Gymnasium, where he passed the matriculation examination in 1835. After studying philology in Gießen, Göttingen and Heidelberg, he took up a position as a tutor and educator in the house of Anselm Salomon von Rothschild in 1842. He managed the branch of the House of Rothschild in Vienna, but mostly lived with his family in Frankfurt and frequently traveled to London and Paris, where Creizenach was able to accompany him. From 1839 to 1853 he was also a teacher at the Philanthropin.

In 1842, Creizenach, a radical supporter of the Jewish reform movement, was one of the co-founders of the liberal Frankfurt Jewish Reform Association. In the years that followed, he distanced himself more and more from his Jewish roots. He questioned the religious regulations and rituals and no longer expected the coming of the Messiah and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, but saw himself as a German Jew. At the beginning of 1854, Creizenach gave up his teaching position at the Philanthropist and, after a trip to Italy, took up his post on 18. Baptized December 1854; he joined the evangelical church. From 1856 to 1858 he published the cultural magazine Frankfurter Museum as Otto Müller's successor. Until 1858 he lived mainly as a private teacher and writer, after which he became a teacher at city schools - first at the trade school, from 1859 at the higher public school and from 1861 at the Frankfurt grammar school. In 1863 he became the successor to Georg Ludwig Kriegk as a full professor at the Gymnasium.

Creizenach was considered a respected Dante and Goethe researcher. He wrote numerous literary works, including two volumes of poetry, essays and plays. From 1870 he worked with Oskar Jäger and Theodor Bernhardt on the world history of Friedrich Christoph Schlosser and continued the work. In 1877 he published the correspondence between Goethe and Marianne von Willemer. The inscription "Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten" on the gable of the Frankfurt Opera House is said to have been inspired by Creizenach. Like his father, he was a member of the Masonic Lodge Zur aufgehende Morgenröthe, which was primarily attended by Frankfurt's Jewish citizens.

Creizenach was married to Louise b. Flersheim, a daughter of the banker Moritz Flersheim. His son is the literary historian Wilhelm Creizenach (1851-1919).

Works (selection)

seals. Hoff, Mannheim 1839.

poems. Literary Institute, Frankfurt am Main 1848. Second, revised and much enlarged edition 1851.

The Aeneid, the Fourth Eclogue and the Pharsalia in the Middle Ages. Program of the high school in Frankfurt am Main. 1864.

Macaulay on the Roman Catholic Church. Auffarth, Frankfurt am Main, 1870.

German Empire and German State in the Views of the French. A contribution to the theory and practice of French political science in the 17th century. and 18 Century. Hobbing, Berlin 1930.

Creizenach: Theodor C., son of the previous, born on 16. April 1818 in Mainz, † on 5. December 1877 in Frankfurt a. Main. He grew up under the influence of his father's spiritual aspirations, to whom he also dedicated the above-mentioned reverential obituary in the New Obituary of the Germans. With him he came to Frankfurt in 1825, where he first attended the Israelite Realschule, then - since 1827 - the Gymnasium, where especially K. Schwenk (sd), Platen's friend, had a stimulating effect on the more gifted students, and 1835-39 the universities Giessen, Goettingen and Heidelberg. In Giessen he gained more from socializing with friends like G. Baur and Carriere than from academic instruction. His stay in Göttingen, where he attended lectures by Ewald, Otfried Müller, Dahlmann, Jacob Grimm and Gervinus at Easter 1837-38, gave him new and broader perspectives. He was also privileged to share the rich suggestions that flowed to him here in the association to process with like-minded friends. A picture of what was going on in this circle is given in Oppermann's novel Hundred Years. For the centenary of the university, he and his friends Carriere and K. Bölsche donated a poetic commemorative gift, which they presented to the guest of honor at this celebration, Alexander v. Humboldt, the most beautiful and most perfect pieces of a sonnet come from C., in which the great masters of the Göttingen University are celebrated. Even when, not long after the days of the festive mood, the seven Göttingen professors lodged a protest against the breach of the constitution, C. and his friends were fully aware of the historical significance of the great moment; he was among the crowd of students escorting the exiled professors Jacob Grimm, Dahlmann and Gervinus, and when they left in Witzenhausen he recited a poem on behalf of his fellow students. Springer in his life story of Dahlmann (I, 446) rightly praises the beautiful way in which the basic tone of devoted loyalty and human sympathy is captured in this poem while avoiding sharp political allusions. Even then C. showed the gift, which later proved itself so often, of finding expression in exalted moments for what moved the hearts of all.

Creizenach's course was interrupted by these events; he moved to Heidelberg, where he continued his philological studies with Creuzer and Bähr and in 1839 acquired the philosophical doctorate. Returning to Frankfurt, he received in 1841 as a teacher of the sons of Baron Anselm v. Rothschild, a position that brought him into contact with some remarkable personalities; After his death, he sketched a masterful characterization of the head of the Frankfurt house, the original old Amschel Mayer (in the supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung of 29 March 1999). December 1855, some awkward editorial additions are easy to eliminate). Above all, however, he now had a desirable opportunity to expand his horizons through a longer stay in Paris and London (1845-47). In Paris he was on friendly terms with Heine, whom he respected very fairly and impartially; He later communicated some interesting features of Heine's characterization in the "Frankfurter Museum". The position in the Rothschild family lasted until 1849, when he came to the Jewish secondary school as an extraordinary teacher. Throughout this period, C. was a keen supporter of the efforts of the Jewish Reform Association, which he helped found in 1842. The association wanted to keep those Jews together in a solid organization who were striving for a spiritualization of Judaism in the spirit of M. Creizenach. In addition to the non-binding nature of the ritual rules and the Talmud, the members advocated above all the idea that they neither expected nor desired a Messiah who was to lead the Jews back to Palestine, but rather that the country to which they belonged by birth or civil status as their sole fatherland. Of course, the reform association found fierce opponents, but also some followers among the Jews who had long harbored similar thoughts in secret, as well as sympathetic participation in non-Jewish liberal circles. The aspirations of the association, insofar as they were based on a German-patriotic basic idea, found their expression in Creizenach's poem "Der deutsche Jewde", even stranger is the poetic self-confession "Moses and Christ", where the insight begins to penetrate that spiritual Judaism , which C. was striving for, had already been realized in Christianity. As C. strengthened himself more and more in this realization, the one of November 1854 matured in him executed decision to be accepted into the evangelical church; he had already given up his teaching post at the Israelite school at the beginning of this year. C. had combined the poetic output of his life up to that point in the "Poems" (Mannheim 1839) and the "Poems" (Frankfurt am Main 1848, second edition. 1851), which, however, by far does not contain everything that he has poetically formed from the manifold impressions of those years. He is usually counted among the “young Germany” and that he initially shared its literary sympathies and antipathies is proven, among other things, by the little satirical drama “Der schwabische Apoll” (Poetry, pp. 85-112). But as far as the purity of the poetic form is concerned, there is a decisive influence on him from Platen, to whom he also dedicated an atmospheric obituary in "Nänie", and in style a calm clarity without any conscious striving for pointed expression. In his poetry he often touched on political events, of which he gained a vivid impression, particularly in [551] 1848 during the session of Parliament in Frankfurt, but even then he showed a deeper understanding of the peculiarities of German nature than this was the case with most liberal idealists.

From the middle of the 1950s his activities increasingly focused on the history of literature and culture; After converting to Christianity, he remained unemployed for several years and devoted the best part of his energies to the "Frankfurt Museum" founded by Otto Müller in 1855, which he directed from 1856-58. It later appeared for a while as a supplement to the political newspaper "Die Zeit". . C. succeeded in recruiting a number of excellent collaborators, such as Scheffel's descriptions from the Tridentine Alps, G. Semper's Greek travel memories, Kuno Fischer's treatise on Schiller as a philosopher first appeared in the "Frankfurter Museum", C. himself published a number of valuable biographical and literary-historical ones treatises and has proved his power of presentation, his widespread erudition and his skill in emphasizing the characteristic detail, especially in the frequently reprinted and used literary notes and anecdotes of the feuilleton. The fact that this magazine did not achieve the distribution and longevity it deserved is mainly due to the clumsy bookselling management of the company. This helped bring C. back to the teaching post; In 1858 he gave lessons at the trade school, then at the higher civil school, until in 1861 he received the teaching post at the grammar school, which had been completed by Kriegk's transfer to the city archive, first provisionally, then definitively from 1863 and administered it until the end of his life; In 1868 he turned down an appointment to the University of Bern. His subjects were primarily German in primary classes and history in all the upper grades, the instruction of which, according to a remarkable peculiarity of the Frankfurt Gymnasium, was given separately for Protestant and Catholic pupils. But just as he generally won the love and respect of his colleagues to the highest degree, so too the relations with his Catholic special colleague, the much admired and much scolded Janssen, were always the best; Despite their fundamental difference in point of view, they felt drawn to each other through personal sympathy and esteem and had no scruples about entrusting each other with their pupils in the event of illness or other obstacles. The students were also aware that through Creizenach's lively and clear views opened up to them in Allen directions Lectures offered a stimulus that went far beyond the average level of grammar school instruction.

C. had already unfolded the rich gifts of his mind and knowledge in public lectures before a larger audience; this kind of activity, which he maintained alongside his teaching post at the Gymnasium, gave him a reputation far beyond the borders of his homeland. It was the time when the custom developed in the larger cities of Germany, especially in the large commercial and industrial cities of the Lower Rhine, to invite outstanding scholars and writers from Allen parts of Germany to public lectures. Here C. was a guest who was always asked anew and received in a friendly manner. “His lectures,” says Rieger, “were always born of the moment without any reference to the manuscript and had a freshness that cannot be achieved otherwise. They flowed along in the most unpretentious narrative tone, without a superfluous word, without any phrasing, with perfect clarity, with calm mastery [552] of the richest material and the most diverse relationships and whoever put his finger on the unfavorable, sharply articulated, but hardly any modulating organ and accustomed to the absence of all pauses for thought, listened with an unperturbed mental contentment. Another advantage which set him apart from most orators of this kind was that he always kept in mind his relation to the circle of listeners who happened to be around him; often, such as B. in an Aachen lecture on the coronation of Charles V and in the Cologne lectures on Sulpiz Boisserée and on Reuchlin's quarrel with the Dominicans, this was already evident in the choice of material.

Through this admirable ease of communication in oral speech, the desire to write and work out more and more receded and this was often regretted, especially on the part of the experts, to whom he gave oral and written instruction with uncommon generosity. Most of them got to know and appreciate him on the occasion of the philologists' meetings, which he often and gladly attended and at which he was elected chairman of the German section several times. But he did not remain idle as a writer either. His most extensive work is the new treatment of the history of the Middle Ages and modern times up to the end of the 17th century. Century in the great Schlosser'schen works, where his remedial hand above all the cultural and literary historical parts came to good; the overview of the intellectual currents of the 17th century Century he completely redesigned. Of his small-scale works, those that follow on from his Dante studies should be mentioned first. The attraction to this poet had received new nourishment through a trip to Italy in 1854, from these studies grew the beautiful and instructive treatise on the Aeneid, the fourth Eclogue and the Pharsalia in the Middle Ages (Frankf. Gymnasium program 1864). The study of medieval Latin poetry connected with this work also led him to discover the origin of the student song 'Gaudeamus' in the thought circle of vagabond poetry (cf. the meeting reports of the German section of the Leipzig philologists' meeting in 1872). Above all, however, his work in the field of Goethe literature should be mentioned. C. was rightly regarded as one of the best experts on Goethe; the circumstances caused him to investigate Goethe's relationships in Frankfurt. His first Goethe publication is remarkable, the publication of the poetic epistles of Goethe and Gotter on the occasion of Götz von Berlichingen, which he published as a 19-year-old youth in the newspaper for the elegant world (22. May 1837) had it printed. This impression still forms the sole basis of the text today. C. heard the epistles read by the owner of the lost manuscript, and his wonderful memory enabled him afterwards to put down on paper what he heard. However, in Goethe's epistle he independently re-composed two lines that had escaped him and the thought that he this manner of smuggling his verses into Goethe's works bothered him so much that he could never make up his mind to name his addition, leaving the sorting out to the philologists of the future. Some of Goethe's essays, which subsequently appeared in Frankfurt journals, show us how he had already at that time, in his judgment of Goethe, reached the point of view which is now the dominant one. When the poet's native city celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 1849, at a moment of saddest turmoil and deepest political discontent, which seemed completely unsuitable for an unbiased [553] and cheerful appreciation of the poet, C. gave a speech in the Kaisersaal and voted with a happy grip the theme "Goethe as Liberator" (printed in the Frankf. Conversation sheet, 28.-30. August 1859); contemporary reports refer to this speech as the highlight of the ceremony. Among the essays on Goethe literature in Frankf. Museum should only be mentioned here the article about Klinger, the treatise on the alleged Goethe's legal dissertation on the fleas (first in the Frankf. Museum 1858, p. 757) may serve as evidence of how C. was able to make even remote details interesting through representations rich in associations. However, it must be regarded as a fortunate coincidence that in 1874 Willemer's heirs allowed him, as the most competent person, to publish the correspondence between Goethe and Marianne v. Willemer and thereby offered him the opportunity to prove his Frankfurt Goethe Studies in a more extensive and significant achievement. The work in which he lovingly immersed himself and the joyful recognition it received when it was published in 1877 made the last years of his life brighter for him.

Among the numerous obituaries that appeared on Creizenach's death, the one by Carriere deserves special mention (supplement to General Newspaper 1877, no. 347), Rieger (German Reichspost 1877, no. 292) and Bartsch (present vol. 13, p. 68 ff.). – the author of this article intends later to publish a more detailed life sketch together with the publication of some unprinted and difficult to access poetry and essays.

Johann Classen-Kappelmann (* 26. December 1816 in Sinzig; † 28 May 1879 in Cologne) was a German industrialist and liberal politician.

Life: After completing his commercial training, Classen-Kappelmann moved to Cologne in 1834 and joined a trading company in 1844. In 1853 he took over the Rhenish spinning mill and tricot factory and built it up into a successful company.[1] In addition, he maintained a factory for the production of cologne. In Sielsdorf he took over the old mill there and turned the former paper factory and wool dyeing works from 1851 into the first industrial company with 22 employees (1861) by installing the first steam engine in the mayor's office of Efferen/Hürth. The mill was sold in 1869 and a carded yarn spinning mill was set up. In Luxembourg, Classen-Kappelmann owned a stake in a textile company. After first being a member of the municipal council of Lindenthal, he was elected a member of the Cologne city council in 1849.

In 1860 he joined the Cologne Chamber of Commerce. Here he was responsible for the manufactured goods trade and for the production of jerseys. From 1861 to 1868 he represented the Cologne Chamber of Commerce on the permanent committee of the German Trade Day in Berlin. In 1860 he was a co-founder of a limited partnership that aimed to organize an annual industrial show in Cologne. He was a member of the Cologne Trade Association and co-founder and chairman of the Economic Association for Rhineland and Westphalia.

As an active local politician, he campaigned, among other things, for a municipal water and gas works, suggested the cancellation of municipal funds for the Corpus Christi procession in 1873 and spoke out in favor of lowering the minimum income for exercising the right to vote from 400 to 200 thalers. As early as 1865 he campaigned for the demolition of the city of Cologne's fortifications.

In 1863 and 1865 he organized the so-called MPs' Festivals in Cologne, which were organized by the opposition MPs from Rhineland-Westphalia.[5][6] While the 1863 festival went according to the organizers' wishes, the 1865 festival ended in a political debacle. The festival at Cologne Zoo was banned by the Prussian commander of Cologne, General Robert von Frankenberg and Ludwigsdorf, and Classen-Kappelmann was to be arrested. On the advice of his political friends, he fled to Verviers in Belgium. After that, the Lord Mayor of Bonn refused the Cologne deputy Classen-Kappelmann to take part in the inauguration of a monument in Bonn.[1] In the Cologne population, however, he experienced great support for his political convictions and so he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives in July 1866.

In 1869 he was elected president of the society "Verein" in Cologne, which was supposed to unite all liberals. After the founding of the German Progressive Party, he headed it in Cologne. Until his death in 1879, he was a municipal representative from Lindenthal and a city councilor from Cologne. He was considered an active and quite controversial local politician.

Classen-Kappelmann wrote poems under the pseudonym Johann von der Ahr in the 1840s and was the editor of numerous political and commercial treatises. He was an active member of several Cologne clubs, including as chairman and Honorary chairman of the Volksbildungsverein, founding member of the Allgemeine Turnverein and board member of the Reading Society.

Classen-Kappelmann died in 1879 after a long illness at the age of 62 at Gut Weyerthal. He was buried in Cologne's Melaten Cemetery (lit. P, between Ref. K and L) buried.[8] The grave was later taken over by the Ibscher family as a sponsorship grave and the original inscription was moved to the back of the grave.

Honour: In the Lindenthal district of Cologne, Classen-Kappelmann's life's work was honored with the naming of a street. The citizens of Frankfurt donated a silver pillar to Classen-Kappelmann in 1866 because he campaigned against the Prussian occupation of Frankfurt.