What Happened to Felix Mendelssohn’s Children?

In the spring of 1836, Felix Mendelssohn met a singer named Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, who was a member of the Cäcilienverein choir in Frankfurt. He was immediately attracted to her.

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

That summer, he returned to Frankfurt, wanting to get to know her better. Soon, they were courting, and in September, they got engaged. The following March, they were married.

Felix’s sister Fanny wrote about her brother’s new wife, “She is amiable, simple, fresh, happy and even-tempered, and I consider Felix most fortunate. For though loving him inexpressibly, she does not spoil him, but when he is moody, meets him with a self-restraint which in due course of time will cure him of his moodiness altogether. The effect of her presence is like that of a fresh breeze, she is so light and bright and natural.”

Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy

The marriage only lasted for ten years, but they were by all accounts a very happy ten years. Unfortunately, tragedy struck in November 1847 when Felix died of a stroke, leaving Cécile with five children.

She felt she could not raise all five by herself, so she sent her boys to be raised by her in-law’s family and kept her two daughters with her at home.

Her health deteriorated. Then, in a traumatising and heartbreaking turn of events, a couple of years after her husband’s death, her sickly seven-year-old son passed away, too. In 1853, she herself died of tuberculosis, leaving the surviving Mendelssohn children orphans.

Today we’re looking at what happened to these five brilliant children: which one spent decades battling mental illness, which one befriended Jenny Lind, and which one founded a company that would prove to be integral to the Nazi war effort.

Mendelssohn – Songs without Words Op. 19 No. 1 in E Major (Vadim Chaimovich)

Carl Wolfgang Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy
(7 February 1838 – 23 February 1897)

Carl Wolfgang Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Carl Wolfgang Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Felix and Cécile’s first child Carl – a strong and stout baby, according to his father – was born in Leipzig in 1838.

He was named after Felix’s teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter; his best friend, diplomat Carl Klingemann; Wolfgang Goethe; and St. Paul, underlining the importance of the family’s conversion to Christianity.

Carl was only nine years old when his father died. When he was fifteen, his mother also died, leaving him and his siblings orphans. He was then sent to live with his banker uncle in Berlin.

In 1859, he earned his law degree. Ultimately, he became a history professor. He taught at universities in Heidelberg and Freiburg and was especially interested in the history of revolutionary politics. His political views led to conflict with other members of his family.

In the late 1860s, he married a woman ten years his junior. They had a daughter together named Cécile, presumably named after his late mother, but tragically, his wife died giving birth to her.

In 1872, he married another woman named Mathilde von Merkl, who soon got pregnant.

Around the time of this second marriage and pregnancy, Carl’s mental health deteriorated precipitously. It is a possibility that he suffered from schizophrenia.

In 1874, Mathilde had a boy named Albrecht, who followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a political scientist and legal scholar. Decades later, Albrecht would be forced to flee Nazi Germany because of his Jewish origins…a darkly ironic fate, given what happened to the company that his chemist uncle had founded. (More about that below.)

Carl resigned from the civil service and traveled to Switzerland, and checked into a psychiatric clinic in Königsfelden. He was never able to live independently again, and he died there twenty-three years later.

Marie Pauline Helene Mendelssohn Bartholdy Benecke
(2 October 1839 – 28 October 1897)

After Marie was born, Felix described her in letters as having abundant dark hair and blue eyes.

She was eight years old when her father died and just about to turn fourteen when her mother died.

In the 1860s, she married Victor Benecke, a cousin of her late mother, and moved to London with him.

While there, she became acquainted with singer Jenny Lind. Lind wrote to Marie, “I can say that the greatest pleasure for me this year was that I have grown closer to you, liebe Mme. Benecke, and have become friends with you. The old deep love for your parents has again completely surfaced in love for you. And so let us remain true friends, meine liebe Mme. Benecke.”

This is a fascinating admission from Jenny Lind, given that Felix may have had an affair with her during his marriage.

We don’t know much else about their friendship, except that Lind confessed to a friend that she thought Marie’s husband was “a clod.”

Between 1868 and 1876, Marie and her husband had four children, two boys and two girls.

In 1895, her brilliant 25-year-old scholar son Edward vanished while mountain-climbing in the Alps, and his body was never recovered. She was devastated and died very suddenly in 1897 after an illness of just a few hours. It was acknowledged that her intense grief had weakened her health.

Dr. Paul Felix Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy
(January 18, 1841 – February 17, 1880)

Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Paul was six years old when his father died and twelve when his mother died.

He studied science at Heidelberg University and graduated in 1863.

In 1866, he enlisted to fight in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which, as its name suggests, was a struggle for power between Austria and Prussia.

He fought in the decisive Battle of Königgrätz and became an officer in the military. He also fought in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, during which he won the Iron Cross.

Between those two wars, he married his first wife, a cousin named Elisabeth Oppenheim. Tragically, she died shortly after the birth of their son Otto in 1868.

After the Franco-Prussian War, Paul married Elisabeth’s sister Enole and had four additional children with her.

Paul’s great professional achievement was pioneering the development of the manufacturing of aniline dye, which had a variety of potential applications.

To take advantage of his discoveries, he co-founded a company called the Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation. That company later merged with other German companies to form IG Farben. The company manufactured Zyklon B, the chemical used to murder prisoners in the gas chambers of concentration camps.

Paul died of a heart attack in 1880. He was only thirty-nine years old…just a year older than his father had been at his death.

Felix August Eduard Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Jr.
(May 01, 1843 – February 16, 1851)

Felix Mendelssohn’s youngest son was his namesake. Tragically, he was always sickly. He died when he was seven, and his widowed mother was left to bury him without her husband.

Fanny Henriette Elisabeth Lili Mendelssohn Bartholdy Wach
(September 19, 1845 – October 10, 1910)

Lili was born in Frankfurt in September 1845. Her father died weeks after her second birthday, and her mother died a few days after her eighth birthday.

When she was in her mid-twenties, she married a man named Adolf Wach, who became a professor of law at Leipzig University.

Between 1871 and 1877, they had five children. Then, unexpectedly, they had their last child twelve years later, in 1889!

She died in 1910 in Switzerland.

How the Mendelssohn Family Preserved Their Legacy

In many families, it falls to women to be archivists of family papers, photographs, and other documents.

The assignment of that responsibility to women was especially common when wives didn’t work outside the home.

In the case of the Mendelssohn family, it was the daughters and, later, their families who were tasked with sorting through the family paperwork.

Marie and Lili’s children were especially involved in the process. The papers they saved provided the basis of the surviving Mendelssohn correspondence that today is stored in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Without their hard work, scholars would know much less about Felix Mendelssohn and his remarkable family.

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MENDELSSOHN ‘Symphony No. 4 – Italian’ – Movement 1: Allegro vivace

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