September 19

© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons

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.