
The Fortunes of the Mendelssohns
History of a German Family
Thomas Lackmann(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Will be published approx. on 3. October 2026
Book
Hardback
424 pages
978-0-19-779704-4 (ISBN)
Description
This richly illustrated family history describes for the first time the world of the Mendelssohns over five generations from the eighteenth century to 1938. Author Thomas Lackmann knowledgeably tells the fate of this large German family caught between tradition and innovation, power and morality, talent and luck.
The story begins with the beggar student Mausche, a 14-year-old Talmud scholar-in-training from Dessau who came to Berlin as an educational migrant. Under the name Moses Mendelssohn (d. 1786), one he invented for himself, he established himself as a successful silk merchant and achieved European fame during his lifetime as a Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. Over two and a half centuries, his family tree branched out into a bourgeois dynasty of merchants, artists, and scholars. Whether his favorite daughter Brendel (who would later become the Romantic author Dorothea Schlegel), his musically gifted grandchildren Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy, or Franz von Mendelssohn, the prominent economic leader of the Weimar Republic, the Mendelssohns have shaped German culture more extensively and over a longer period of time than any other middle-class family. At the center of this family chronicle is a restless traveler and searcher of his identity: Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the son of the philosopher Moses and father of the composer Felix.
In thirty-six lively portraits, Lackmann offers a microcosm of German-Jewish history--showing how the Mendelssohns influenced the self-image and assimilation of German Jews but also impacted the majority Christian society through their contributions as writers, intellectuals, scientists, musicians, painters, bankers, and entrepreneurs.
The story begins with the beggar student Mausche, a 14-year-old Talmud scholar-in-training from Dessau who came to Berlin as an educational migrant. Under the name Moses Mendelssohn (d. 1786), one he invented for himself, he established himself as a successful silk merchant and achieved European fame during his lifetime as a Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. Over two and a half centuries, his family tree branched out into a bourgeois dynasty of merchants, artists, and scholars. Whether his favorite daughter Brendel (who would later become the Romantic author Dorothea Schlegel), his musically gifted grandchildren Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy, or Franz von Mendelssohn, the prominent economic leader of the Weimar Republic, the Mendelssohns have shaped German culture more extensively and over a longer period of time than any other middle-class family. At the center of this family chronicle is a restless traveler and searcher of his identity: Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the son of the philosopher Moses and father of the composer Felix.
In thirty-six lively portraits, Lackmann offers a microcosm of German-Jewish history--showing how the Mendelssohns influenced the self-image and assimilation of German Jews but also impacted the majority Christian society through their contributions as writers, intellectuals, scientists, musicians, painters, bankers, and entrepreneurs.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Illustrations
40 b/w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-779704-4 (9780197797044)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Thomas Lackmann is the current director and exhibition curator of the Mendelssohn Remise in Berlin and has been a board member of the Mendelssohn Society since 2011. He is also a descendent of Moses Mendelssohn.
Barbara Thiem is a performing cellist and college teacher. She has translated other works of Mendelssohn history, specifically From New York to San Francisco by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. She is also a descendant of Moses Mendelssohn, in the branch of the banker Franz von Mendelssohn.
Jane K. Brown, former president of the Goethe Society of North America, has written and edited numerous books on Goethe, European drama and other topics, as well as translations. Her translation of Harald Weinrich's Tempus was awarded the Sgalione Translation Prize from the Modern Language Association of America.
Barbara Thiem is a performing cellist and college teacher. She has translated other works of Mendelssohn history, specifically From New York to San Francisco by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. She is also a descendant of Moses Mendelssohn, in the branch of the banker Franz von Mendelssohn.
Jane K. Brown, former president of the Goethe Society of North America, has written and edited numerous books on Goethe, European drama and other topics, as well as translations. Her translation of Harald Weinrich's Tempus was awarded the Sgalione Translation Prize from the Modern Language Association of America.
Author
Vice ChairpersonVice Chairperson, Mendelssohn-Gesellschaft
Translation
Professor of Cello, Pedagogy, and Chamber MusicProfessor of Cello, Pedagogy, and Chamber Music, Colorado State University
Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor for Western Civilization EmeritaJoff Hanauer Distinguished Professor for Western Civilization Emerita, University of Washington
Content
- Prologue: "On Random Coincidences"
- Chapter 1: The Immigrant
- Chapter 2: Children of the Ring Parable
- Chapter 3: My Father's Son
- Chapter 4: Coming Home to Foreign Parts
- Chapter 5: The Fatherland of Memory
- Chapter 6: Legacy in Crisis