Salomo Sachs


Salomo Sachs was a German architect, astronomer, Prussian building official, mathematician, drawing teacher for architecture, teacher for machine drawings, building economist, writer, author of non-fiction and textbooks and universal scholar. He attained the rank of a royal building inspector and with his cousin Major Meno Burg they were the only men in the Prussian civil service who had not renounced their Jewish faith.
Sachs was born in Berlin on December 22, 1772, the son of Lottery collector and Protected Jew Joel Jacob Sachs and his second wife Esther Sachs. His father was head of the association Bedek Habajith of the Jewish community of Berlin

Education and qualification

At the age of 18 he studied architecture and drawing from 1790 to 1792 at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin. On December 9, 1792 he was sworn in as pupil at the Oberhofbauamt in Berlin. His teacher and superior in service was the Royal Oberhofbaurat and Geheime Kriegsrat Friedrich Becherer.
At this time ruled Frederick William II. On July 1, 1794, Sachs obtained a patent as Ober-Hof-Bau-Conducteur and on September 26, 1799, he was appointed Ober-Hof-Bau-Inspector at the Oberhofbauamt. During his training, Dr. Johann Albert Eytelwein was also one of his teachers, to whom he dedicated his work Complete instruction in the manufacture of building hardware in 1827. As building inspector he took over the leadership of the building police in his department and the chairmanship of the examination commission of the master builders. Between 1790 and 1796, it was planned to use the land in the Molkenmarkt 1 area for the construction of the new city bailiwick. Projects were designed by members of the Oberhofbauamt and construction began in 1791 under the direction of Paul Ludwig Simon and Friedrich Gilly. Solomo Sachs had, not officially requested, designed two facades for this. These were the facades of the portal and the front on the Spree side, which the authority accepted very favourably, and for which he received his first public recognition. Since 1786 the Academy of Arts and Mechanical Science published the catalogue for the annual Academy exhibition. In the following years the biennial rhythm was introduced. The aim was to distinguish the Berlin public from the other academies in Kassel and Dresden. In the years 1786 to 1816, mainly architectural models and designs based on antique models took up space. A large proportion of the entries were submitted by academy students and younger Conducteuren. In 1794, Johann Carl Gottlieb Schlaetzer, Salomo Sachs, August Ferdinand Mandel, Johann Georg Moser and Paul Ludwig Simon were able to contribute their designs for churches, prisons, a playhouse, hunting lodge, country houses and town houses, summer houses and mortuaries to the exhibition and catalogue. In 1798 Sachs designed a mortuary for the Society of Friends, but for financial reasons it was never executed. From 1799 to 1806 he taught as a drawing teacher for architecture and a teacher for machine drawings at the Bauakademie, which was newly founded by King Frederick William III. on 6 July 1799.

Family and siblings

On 21 September 1802 he married Henriette Isser from Hamburg in Berlin. The marriage produced a son. His son Albert Sachs became a doctor.
His uncle was Jüdel Sachs, who was a gardener by profession and made a name for himself as a pioneer of career changes.
Salomo Sachs had the following siblings
Jewish couples, as well as Veile and Alexander Benda and Süßsche and Jacob Joel, had to submit applications for concessions to marry, partly also for marriage certificates and, after marriage, for the scheduling of children.

New Guardhouse (Neue Wache) and the outbreak of war

In 1806, shortly before the outbreak of the French war, the Collegium of the Bauakademie was commissioned by the highest authority to draw up and submit plans for the reconstruction of the Opera Bridge with a guardhouse nearby and the construction of a massive dog bridge. Here, the older and higher-ranking officials of the Collegium were in demand, for example Johann Heinrich Gentz. As a young civil servant, Solomo Sachs was so fascinated by this task that he worked out his own drawings, ideas and drafts in complete silence. He submitted them to his teacher, the privy councillor Becherer, who submitted the drawings for examination. Against all the specialists' magnificent drawings, his designs for the Palace Bridge and the New Guardhouse won the prize. The outbreak of war delayed the plans.

The Coalition Wars and the War of Liberation 1813–1815 and the search for new intentions

After the lost war, the financing of the Bauakademie and the Oberhofbauamt fell victim to the state austerity measures in favour of contributions to France and Sachs lost his job. He received waiting pay from the government from 1808 to 1816.
Only after the end of the war was the plan resumed by Friedrich Schinkel, but now it was implemented with its adaptations. It was not until 1842 that Sachs noted in his autobiography that the new guardhous in particular resembled his basic designs, with the exception of Schinkel's masterly decoration of the building.

The flying cataster and the municipal tax

In 1812, Sachs wrote the first complete Allgemeine Straßen und Wohnungs-Anzeiger for the royal capital of Berlin. It was a groundbreaking work for future address books as well, and this masterpiece even found buyers abroad. The king ordered 4 copies and the State Chancellor Karl August Prince von Hardenberg ordered 12 copies. The police stations also ordered, as the map plans and addresses were very accurate. Unfortunately the beginning of the second French war prevented him from making a good financial living. However, the address book opened up another possibility, since the Privy Councillor Friedrich August von Staegemann, chairman of the finance party, was currently working on the organisation of the property tax, the idea of a flying cataster was born. Sachs opened an office to deal with this task, in order to gain control of the taxpayers with the least personnel. Berlin was thereby divided into 12 tax districts, with each district receiving information on changes in the residence of its citizens every day by means of a form and updated hourly. This is also how the first residents' registration offices came into being and police-relevant parts of the flying cadastre were set up and used at every police station in Berlin's residential city. The Privy Oberfinanzrat von Staegemann commissioned Sachs to make proposals to provide the state with income of several million talers through a suitable tax. His proposal led to the municipal tax that is still in force today and was first implemented as a Mieth tax.

The Accommodation authority

In 1813 the accommodation authority had to be reorganized, as Russian troops passing through had to be accommodated and fed by tenants and house owners. This represented an unbearable burden of war and many complaints were made about the state's ruthless distribution practices. On 15 March 1813, at the highest cabinet order of King Friedrich Wilhelm III, who was in Breslau, Silesia at the time, the entire Prussian territory between the Elbe and the Russian border was divided into four military governorates for military strategic reasons of waging war against France. At the same time, the Oberregierungskommission in Berlin, which had been founded on January 20, 1813, was dissolved, as was the General Commission for Accommodation, Food and marching affairs, which had been created on April 24, 1812.
The royal order to Berlin to establish the 1st Military Governorate between the Elbe and Oder rivers was given to Military Governor Lieutenant General Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq and Civil Governor and Privy State Councillor Dr. Johann August Sack. They were to find suitable measures and solutions for the troops passing through and their quartering. This important authority entrusted Sachs with this task. He was assigned staff and assigned a room in the Kölln town hall, which he set up as an account office. There he and his colleagues were the contact persons for inquiries, complaints, claims and the development of a fair system of accommodation for the citizens.
In March 1813, the orders of magnitude to be handled amounted to 13300 soldiers and 4000 horses of the Russian military and 8100 soldiers and 1000 horses of the Prussian army every day. In July the maximum number of Prussian soldiers, 2000 prisoners and 5500 sick people reached 18000. Solomon had found the ingenious solution with a voucher system that would be paid out at the end of the war. Everyone who reported within 24 hours of being billeted and handed in his billet for the quarter received these vouchers. This fair system could thus be installed, and Sachs and his many employees solved this task to everyone's satisfaction.

Struggling for reinstatement into the Prussian civil service

On the basis of a specially prepared expert opinion of September 23, 1815, for the Jewish community of Berlin, following damage caused by moisture to the dome of the Old Synagogue, Sachs had produced architectural drawings.
On April 7, 1816, Sachs asked the king for his reinstatement. This request was rejected on the basis of Prussian Jewish Edict §9 of 1812. However, his second petition, dated April 24, 1816, led to success through the king, who allowed the exception to the rule, and through the announcement of the supreme cabinet order of April 29, 1816, by Cabinet Counsel Albrecht. At this time, Sachs lived at 49 Markgrafenstrasse and was a neighbor of Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

His transfer to Marienwerder in West Prussia

From 1816 to 1820 he worked as Country master builder for the Royal Government Marienwerder in West Prussia. From the laying of the foundation stone on May 3, 1818 until its ceremonial consecration on August 3, 1823, a Protestant church was built in Mewe according to plans by Schinkel, under the construction supervision of Sachs. In other church buildings in Stuhm and Marienwerder he was discriminated against by Protestant clergy anti-Semitic, which is why he built here as a Jew. He implemented Schinkel's designs despite all adversities. There were great difficulties in doing so, because the construction drawings of Schinkel were partly not understood or misinterpreted by Sachs' superior, the government and building official Balkow. In 1819, Salomo Sachs opened a Baugewerkschule in Marienwerder, which existed for 15 years until 1834. He took over the management and offered free lessons.

His transfer back to Potsdam

From 1820 to 1830 he was again, under his qualification, employed as Country master builder in the fourth building district at the Royal Government in Potsdam and was an employee of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. From December 8, 1820, Sachs was appointed to the examination commission for building craftsmen, and his area of responsibility here was the district of Spandau. At this time he lived at Spandauerstraße 49 in the center of Berlin. On December 3, 1824, a so-called art road from Prenzlauer Tor to Heinersdorf was approved, it is today's Prenzlauer Allee. Sachs had done all the preliminary work here, including surveying, design, situation plan and cost planning. He brought together the most distinguished residents, who enabled him to do the necessary work financially. This group formed a public limited company, which, with the help of the government, put the project into practice. In 1825 Sachs began planning the new construction of the Fasanenmeisterhaus in the Tiergarten in its improved loam construction. The commission was given by the royal chief hunter Friedrich Detlev Graf von Moltke.. According to an expert opinion, issued by Friedrich Schinkel and Johann Carl Ludwig Schmid, on his rammed earth] pisé] buildings, which was devastating for Sachs, he was unable to complete his work. Schinkel was commissioned by the Oberbaudeputat to execute the house in classical brick construction.
The of the members of the Oberbaudeputation against Salomo Sachs increased further.
After Sachs was crushed by the Oberbaudepartement with his plans for the new home of the pheasant hunter, he was commissioned by Wilhelm zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein to hand over his drawings and cost accounting, for comparison with Schinkel's designs. After the handover, his work disappeared forever, despite demands for restitution, and Sachs was not paid for his expenses until 17 years later. Despite these setbacks and insinuations, he continued to work on his reputation. In 1829 he was commissioned by the sons of Otto von Voß to Birkholz to design and rebuild a new church tower. At the same time Carl Justus Heckmann for the roofing and Carl August Mencke for the gilding of the spire were also appointed to the building work. From 1829 to 1830, Sachs became increasingly disliked by the royal government and his superiors. He had been commissioned by the military, who were convinced of his cost-saving clay construction method, to build a cavalry horse stable in Charlottenburg. At the request of the military leadership, the construction was to take place very quickly and under his sole leadership without the participation of the royal government. This caused further tensions with his superiors, as the design in brick was already available.

The involuntary retirement

With his involuntary retirement in 1830, Salomo Sachs' career in the Prussian civil service came to an end. In June, he once again expressed his unbroken enthusiasm for his work with a design for a monument to Friedrich II. He was praised for this by his superiors.
From then on, he devoted himself to his literary work, the restoration of his reputation and the validity of his improved pisé building

His 50th anniversary of office and 70th birthday

In honour of his 50th anniversary, scholars, architects, merchants, writers and friends gathered for lunch on 9 December 1842 in a daytime restaurant in Berlin.The room was decorated by the royal landscape and theater decoration painter Johann Karl Jakob Gerst with the Portrait of Sachs under Flower garlands. Part of the table decoration had the shape of the Sloping Tower of Pisa, with the inscription "Sachs' indestructible Pisébau".Among the dinner speakers and guests were community leader Joseph Lehmann, editor of the magazine for foreign literature, Dr. Löwe as organizer of the festival and Prof. Wilhelm Stier. Stier had been trained by Solomon as a student of the Bauakademie in 1816 and they had become friends. Another speaker was the writer, philosopher, bookseller and humorist Dr. Louis Weyl.. With his humorous lecture on the arts, especially architecture, and a table song, he delighted the society.
On 22 December 1842 Sachs celebrated his seventieth birthday.
Sachs' varied literary activities continued in 1844. His astronomical writings – Achsenparallelismus und Sonnensystem, i.e. parallelism of axes and the solar system, appeared in Berlin in 1850, but were not as successful. However, his two self-developed illustrative models for teaching, the "Diagonon" and the "Cylindrical Ellipto-Tellurium", are to be praised. In 1845, Solomon wrote a pamphlet On the existence of air and water pressure, which was directed against Friedrich Johann von Drieberg.

The emancipation of the Jews always remained an important concern

An article in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums of June 26, 1847, once again demonstrates the efforts of Solomon Sachs, even at the high age of 75, that Jewish emancipation continued to be a current topic for him.
A controversial statement by the Landtag commissioner Minister Ernst von Bodelschwingh the Elder, during the discussion of the Prussian Jewish Law of 1847 at a city council meeting, led to a retrospective encounter with Sachs.
He drove to the hotel of the Ministry of the Interior and waited for the minister there to hand over his biography with picture and signature as a souvenir.
Bodelschwingh thanked him and asked him whether he had remained true to the Jewish faith and received a pension from the state.
On 25 July 1848, the constituent Prussian National Assembly met at its 32nd session in the rooms of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. In the commission report on the motion of the members of parliament Count Eduard von Reichenbach, Dr. Stein and Dr. Elsner to change the meeting room of 26 May, Baurat Eduard Knoblauch had been commissioned to find or rebuild a suitable larger plenary hall with various building surveys. A provisional construction of a new house for the Prussian Chambers had also been suggested to the commission by the untiringly Sachs. His plan for the house referred to the part of the chestnut grove at Am Kupfergraben that adjoins Dorotheenstraße.
"This morning, in the 83rd year, of the Köngl. building inspector Sachs gently and painlessly fell asleep..
The funeral will take place from the house of death Grenadierstraße 18th Wednesday the 16th, Vormitt. 9 o'clock. This is reported to his friends in Berlin 14 May 1855 and the bereaved."

Buildings, drafts and expert opinions