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September
19 in German History
--------------------------------- September 19, 1610
Death of Friedrich IV in Heidelberg,
Germany. Friedrich, an ardent Protestant, was the elector of
Rhineland-Pfalz. He actively opposed the Roman church and
Habsburg leadership in the Holy Roman Empire.
September 19, 1769
Birth of Alexander von Humboldt in Berlin,
Germany.
September 19, 1812
Meyer Rothschild died on this date in
Frankfurt am Main, the city where he had been born in 1744
and where he had spent his entire life. Meyer Amschel
Rothschild was the founder of the Rothschild dynasty which
was the most powerful banking block in Europe for around 200
years. Mayer was born to a relatively poor family in
Frankfurt, but after a banking internship learned to deal
very effectively on the stock market. He built up a fortune
on the Frankfurt market. He began financing rulers and entire
wars. His five sons used the fortune to set up dominant
banking houses in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna, and
Naples. Since the name as it is known today is associated
mostly with a French vineyard, many people assume that the
Rothschilds were a French family. As we have seen the
influential family began with a Frankfurter. The name simply
means "red sign", and was derived from the red sign
which the family business had had on its house in the
Frankfurt Jewishghetto.
September 19, 1864
Birth of Carl Erich Correns in Munich,
Germany. After Gregor Mendel had died, his work on heredity
had been forgotten. Correns, a professor of biology at the
University of Tübingen discovered Mendel's manuscripts and
conducted research confirming Mendel's work. Correns became
the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in
Berlin in 1914. He died in Berlin in 1933.
September 19, 1871
Birth of Fritz Schaudinn in Röseningken,
Germany. Schaudinn discovered Spirochaeta pallida, the cause
of syphilis.
September 19, 1940
A Nazi order forbids "Aryan"
women from working in Jewish homes.
September 19, 1945
Lord Haw Haw, a British subject who had
gone over to Germany and sent propaganda messages by radio
during WWII, is sentenced to death in London for treason.
September 19, 1946
In a speech given in Zürich Winston
Churchill suggests the formation of a "United States of
Europe". (The European Union will develop from this
idea.)
September 19, 1965
The fifth parliamentary elections take
place in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The
CDU/CSU gets 47.6% of the vote, the SPD 39.3%, and the FDP
9.5%. The governing coalition consists of the CDU/CSU and the
FDP. Ludwig Erhard (CDU) is the chancellor.
September 19, 2001
In the light of the New York attack by
terrorists the German Bundestag votes full support and
solidarity with the USA, including military support.
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