Leopold Cassella (born 8 December 1766 in Friedberg, Hesse, died 25 March 1847 in Frankfurt) was a German businessman, known for having founded the company Cassella, one of many predecessor companies of today's Sanofi.
Born David Löb Cassel, he grew up in a Jewish family in Friedberg as the son of a financier. After relocating to Frankfurt, he founded the company Cassel & Reiss with his brother-in-law Isaac Elias Reiss as a spice store in the Jewish Alley. He used the name Leopold Cassella for the first time when he married Nannette Reiss in Frankfurt in 1798, and acquired the Frankfurt burghership in 1812. He was also the founder of the Masonic lodge Zur aufgehenden Morgenröte, which consisted of Frankfurt citizens primarily of the Jewish faith. He had no children of his own, but he raised his niece Rosette Goldschmidt like his own daughter. She married an employee of the firm, Ludwig Aaron Gans, who became Cassella's heir. [1] [2] [3]
Leopold Cassella is interred at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Frankfurt.
Leopold Zunz was the founder of academic Judaic Studies, the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual. Zunz's historical investigations and contemporary writings had an important influence on contemporary Judaism.
Leopold I was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain, Leopold became heir apparent in 1654 after the death of his elder brother Ferdinand IV. Elected in 1658, Leopold ruled the Holy Roman Empire until his death in 1705, becoming the second longest-ruling Habsburg emperor. He was both a composer and considerable patron of music.
Friedberg is a town and the capital of the Wetteraukreis district, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 26 km north of Frankfurt am Main. In 1966, the town hosted the sixth Hessentag state festival, in 1979 the 19th.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild was a German-Jewish banker and the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Referred to as a "founding father of international finance", Rothschild was ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of "The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time" in 2005.
Jacob Henry Schiff was a German-born American banker, businessman, and philanthropist. He helped finance the expansion of American railroads, and the Japanese military efforts against Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War.
Lev Nussimbaum, who wrote under the pen names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, was a writer and journalist, born in Kiev to a Jewish family. He lived there and in Baku during his childhood before fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1920 at the age of 14. In 1922, while living in Germany, he obtained a certificate claiming that he had converted to Islam in the presence of the imam of the Turkish embassy in Berlin. He created a niche for himself in the competitive European literary world by writing about topics that Westerners, in general, knew little about - the Caucasus, the Russian Empire, the Bolshevik Revolution, newly discovered oil, and Islam. He wrote under the name of Essad Bey in German.
Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, was a British merchant banker and capitalist. Born and raised in Prussia, he moved to England at the age of 17.
Richard Plant was a gay Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany, first to Switzerland and then to the U.S., who became a professor at the City College of New York, where he taught German language and literature from 1947 to 1973. He authored an opera scenario as well a number of fictional and non-fictional works, notably The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (1986).
The Hep-Hep riots from August to October 1819 were pogroms against Ashkenazi Jews, beginning in the Kingdom of Bavaria, during the period of Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation. The antisemitic communal violence began on August 2, 1819, in Würzburg and soon reached the outer regions of the German Confederation. Many Jews were injured and much Jewish property was destroyed, although no deaths were reported.
Cassella AG, formerly Leopold Cassella & Co. and Cassella Farbwerke Mainkur AG, commonly known as Cassella, was a German chemical and pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. Founded in 1798, in the Frankfurt Jewish Alley by Leopold Cassella, Cassella operated as an independent company until 1995, and was one of many predecessor companies of today's Sanofi. Its main products were dyes, drugs, cosmetics and various other chemical products. From 1949, Cassella focused increasingly on pharmaceuticals and cosmetics rather than its former primary focus, dyes. Much of its history is closely associated with the Gans family, a prominent family of industrialists and philanthropists and former owners of Cassella.
Ferdinand Mainzer was a German-Jewish gynaecologist and historical author.
The Gans family is a prominent German family of industrialists and philanthropists from Frankfurt am Main. It is descended from Ludwig Aaron Gans, a Jewish businessman from Celle, who became an apprentice in the firm Caßel & Reiß in Frankfurt in 1814. In 1828, he married Rosette Goldschmidt (1805–1868), a niece and adopted daughter of the firm's owner Leopold Cassella, and was accepted as a partner of the firm. In 1848, Gans became sole owner of Leopold Cassella & Co., as the company was then named. Ludwig Aaron Gans was the father of the major industrialist Friedrich Ludwig von Gans, who was ennobled in 1912, and of the chemist and industrialist Leo Gans. The family converted from Judaism to Protestantism in the late 19th century.
Ludwig Aaron Gans was a German industrialist and owner of the company Cassella.
The Old Jewish Cemetery of Frankfurt is located at Rat-Beil-Straße directly adjacent to the oldest parts of the gentile Frankfurt Main Cemetery. Together, Frankfurt Main Cemetery, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the New Jewish Cemetery constitute one of the largest cemetery areas in Germany. The Old Jewish Cemetery is noted for many monumental graves and includes the graves of many notable individuals. The Old Jewish Cemetery is the largest of Frankfurt's twelve Jewish cemeteries.
Arthur von Weinberg was a German chemist and industrialist.
Christoph Kohl was a German chemist and industrial leader. He was chairman of the board of directors and CEO of the chemical and pharmaceutical company Cassella from 1964, chairman of its supervisory board and chairman of the supervisory board of Riedel-de Haën.
Richard von Szilvinyi was a German industrialist.
The Jewish Bernays family has its recent origins in the town of Groß-Gerau in the German state of Hesse, where the patriarch of the family, Rabbiner Beer Neustädtel lived with his family. Two of his sons, Isaac, born in 1742 and Jacob, born in 1747 went on to establish very influential and well known dynasties in Europe, England, USA and Australia. During the French occupation of the Mainz region in the 1800s, all families were required under the Code of Napoleon to register an identifiable family name and in doing so, to gain considerable freedoms including ability to attend university. It was at that time that the family registered the name "Bernays" in lieu of Beer or Baer.
Carl von Weinberg was an important Jewish German chemist, entrepreneur, patron of the arts and philanthropist.
Leopold Stein was a German rabbi, theologian, and writer. He was a prominent leader of the Reform movement.