Albrecht family

The Albrecht family is a North German family whose members have been prominent as civil servants, politicians and businesspeople.

The family is descended from Barthold Albrecht (born 1557), who was a pastor in Bodenwerder. Numerous of his descendants were doctors, jurists and civil servants in what became the Electorate and Kingdom of Hanover, a state that was in a personal union with the United Kingdom from 1714. The family was among the hübsche ("courtly" or "genteel") families of Hanover, the informal third elite group after the nobility and the clergy that encompassed the higher bourgeoisie and university-educated civil servants.

The lawyer Karl Franz Georg Albrecht (1799–1873) became director-general of direct taxation in the Kingdom of Hanover in 1847, and then director-general of customs from 1854 and member of the State Council of Hanover from 1856. He was the father of George Alexander Albrecht (1834–1898), who became a wealthy cotton merchant in the city state of Bremen, where he became part of the Hanseatic elite and was appointed as the Austro-Hungarian Consul in 1895. He married Louise Dorothea Betty Knoop (1844–1889), the daughter of the major cotton industrialist, Baron Ludwig Knoop, who had been ennobled in the Russian Empire. They were the parents of the cotton merchant Carl Albrecht (1875–1952), who married Mary Ladson Robertson (1883–1960), who belonged to a prominent American family of the Southern aristocracy from Charleston, South Carolina; she was a descendant of James Ladson and several colonial governors of Carolina. Carl and Mary Albrecht were the parents of the medical doctor and psychologist Carl Albrecht (1902–1965). The latter was the father of the conductor George Alexander Albrecht and the European civil servant and later Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Ernst Albrecht. The conductor George Alexander Albrecht was the father of the chief conductor of the Dutch National Opera Marc Albrecht while Ernst Albrecht was the father of the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (née Albrecht) and of the businessman Hans-Holger Albrecht.[1][2][3]

The family is included in the Deutsches Geschlechterbuch which covers prominent families in Germany.[1][2]

The family's coat of arms features in red a golden lion that breaks a silver chain.

Family tree

• Barthold Albrecht (1557–1642), pastor[2]
  • Statius Albrecht (1603–1651), medical doctor[2]
    • Johann Peter Albrecht (1651–1724), medical doctor[2]
      • Johann Günter Albrecht (1676–1745), medical doctor (Oberlandphysicus) in Hildesheim[2]
        • Johann Peter Albrecht (1703–1753), state councillor (Hof- und Regierungsrat) in the Electorate of Cologne[2]
          • Johann Friedrich Albrecht (1737–1799), county governor of Isenhagen[2]
            • Franz August Heinrich Albrecht (1766–1848), county governor of Syke[2]
              • Karl Franz Georg Albrecht (1799–1873), state councillor and director-general of customs in the Kingdom of Hanover[2]
                • George Alexander Albrecht (1834–1898), consul and cotton merchant in Bremen; married Louise Dorothea Betty Knoop (1844–1889)[2]
                  • Carl Albrecht (1875–1952), cotton merchant in Bremen; married Mary Ladson-Robertson[2]
                    • Carl Albrecht (1902–1965), medical doctor and psychologist[2]
                      • George Alexander Albrecht (1935–), conductor[2]
                        • Marc Albrecht (1964–), conductor[2]
                      • Ernst Albrecht (1930–2014), director-general of the European Commission and Prime Minister of Lower Saxony[2]
                        • Ursula von der Leyen (1958–), President of the European Commission[2]
                        • Hans-Holger Albrecht (1963–), businessman[2]

References

1. Deutsches Geschlechterbuch. 17. 1910.
2. Deutsches Geschlechterbuch. 187. 1982. p. 43.
3. Ehrengast mit Bremer Wurzeln