Jagerstrasse 51

Originally, the building now called the “Mendelssohn-Remise” was constructed in 1890 as the counter hall of the Mendelssohn Bank in Jägerstrasse 51. Later, it served as a coach house. As early as in 1815, the eldest sons of the philosopher and merchant Moses Mendelssohn, Joseph and Abraham, had re-located to this address the bank they had founded in 1795. Here, it went on to become the largest private bank in Berlin, until its forced liquidation in 1938.
The permanent exhibition “Die Mendelssohns in der Jägerstrasse” (The Mendelssohn Family in Jägerstrasse) commemorates the history of the bank, the lives of the bankers, their sponsorship of the arts, their charitable work and their unique network formed by business partners, scholars, musicians and artists. The chapter “The Religion of the Mendelssohns” highlights the different confessional affiliations of the various members of the family and their search for an identity between Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, the romantic religion of art and an enlightened ethos of civil religion.
Mendelssohn-Gesellschaft e.V. is responsible for managing the Mendelssohn-Remise, which is used as an exhibition space, events forum and history workshop. The association has set itself the task of memorializing this exceptional Prussian family of Jewish descent, five generations of which have each left their mark on Germany’s cultural and economic history. For this purpose, the association publishes research, collects documents and artifacts for its exhibitions, explores Berlin’s topography and investigates the subject of “civic responsibility”.

Related Topics
Enlightenment, Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Jewish-German History, Judaism, Jägerstrasse, Moses Mendelssohn, Patronage, Religion, Salon