EICHTHAL-SELIGMANN

EICHTHAL-SELIGMANN, family of German Court Jews and bankers. The family was descended from ARON SELIGMANN (d. 1744), a trader and banker of Leimen, near Heidelberg. His sons ARON and ELIAS served as Court Jews in the Palatinate and in Wuerttemberg; both died in the 1770s. Four sons of Elias – ARON ELIAS, MAYER, LIEBMANN, and LEMLE – followed their father's vocation in the Palatinate, Bavaria, Baden, and Saxonia. The eldest, Aron Elias (1747–1824), became successively court factor, court agent, court councilor, and court banker to the royal house of Bavaria. In 1814, as a reward for his services as an army supplier during the Napoleonic Wars, he was made Freiherr (Baron) von Eichthal, the changed name and status being accompanied by a change of religion. All five sons of the first Freiherr Elias von Eichthal became bankers: ARNOLD (1772–1838) in Augsburg; DAVID (1775–1850) – who was also a factory owner in Karlsruhe; LOUIS ARON (ADOLPH) (1780–1850) in Paris, where he cooperated with the Péreire brothers and the rothschilds in early French railroad development; BERNHARD (1784–1839), who was a financial councilor; and SIMON (LEONHARD) (1787–1854), who was court banker in Munich. Simon initiated the first Bavarian banking legislation in 1834, was a main shareholder in and first president of the Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank, and pioneered Bavaria's railroad development. Simon's son CARL (1813–1880) was one of the founders of the Bayrische Vereinsbank. He was also a member of the "Zollparlament," composed of South-German delegates and the North-German Reichstag. A street in Munich is named after the family to mark their achievements in many community affairs. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Theiss, Die Bedeutung der Hoffaktorenfamilie Seligmann-Eichthal (1966); F. Steffan, Bayerische Vereinsbank (1969); H. Schnee, Die Hoffinanz und der moderne Staat, 4 (1963), 213–41; L. Huemmert, Die finanziellen Beziehungen juedischer Bankiers und Heereslieferanten zum bayerischen Staat (1927). (Joachim O. Ronall)