Johann Daniel Sander was born on 9 July 1680 in Maienfels, in the Duchy of Württemberg, the son of the vicar Heinrich Sander. He died on 22 June 1731 in Kitzingen. Johann Daniel was the nephew of Kitzingen’s first wine merchant, Johann Christoph Sander (1646–1719), who moved from Göttingen to the town on the Main in 1667. He came from an old family that had been based in the Imperial City of Nordhausen since 1350, then in Rome and in Göttingen (from 1560 to 1696). The Sanders were regarded in Göttingen as wealthy and highly respected merchants. Johann Daniel’s father, Jobst, was a member of the merchants’ guild, and both his grandfathers were councillors. The family were counted amongst the ‘most distinguished citizens’.
In 1667, the young Johann Christoph Sander began a commercial apprenticeship with his uncle Jobst Oppermann, who had been living in Kitzingen for five years and traded mainly in wine and spirits. He remained in his uncle’s business for a total of eight years. He then set up shop as a linen and wine merchant in Herrnstraße, but, in the wake of the French Wars, turned his attention entirely to the more lucrative wine and brandy trade, which was to bring him great wealth.
From 1676 to 1708, he headed the Sander trading house, which dealt in spirits and wine in Kitzingen and even maintained trade links with, amongst others, Holland and Westphalia. Together with Kaspar Wilhelm Rittershausen, he secured a monopoly on the transit trade in brandy within the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg. Sander owned a substantial estate comprising vineyards, gardens and arable land, and was also involved in money-lending and property deals. With the taxable value of his estate standing at 2,141 guilders in 1685, Sander was, alongside Kaspar Wilhelm Rittershausen, the wealthiest citizen of Kitzingen.
Johann Christoph Sander was also a passionate advocate of the Protestant faith and a member of the Protestant parish council. In 1685, he was elected to the Inner Council by a unanimous decision of the Protestant and Catholic councillors. By this time at the latest, he had risen to become one of the most important leaders of the Protestant congregation.
In the summer of 1692, having no heirs of his own, Sander brought his nephew Johann Daniel, then aged 12, to live with him in Kitzingen and later adopted him. In 1697, Sander – who had lived on the Markt for 16 years by that point and also owned a second house on Herrngasse – acquired a new, stately property with a garden and spacious wine cellars by the city wall, not far from the Faltertor on Rosengasse. This had belonged to Baroness Johanna Juliana von Thüngen since 1687, hence the name ‘Thüngensches Schlösschen’ (Thüngen’s Little Castle), which was widely used for the property at the time.
The house was built in 1573 by Konrad Müller (1539–1610), a councillor who had emigrated from Würzburg because of his Protestant faith and who later became Chamberlain and Steward of Brandenburg-Ansbach. After his death, his son Georg Ludwig Müller – a councillor to the Prince of Brandenburg, monastery administrator and treasurer – lived there with his family. When, following the reacquisition of Kitzingen by the Bishopric of Würzburg and the associated recatholisation of Kitzingen in 1629, he was forced to move with his wife and children to Neustadt an der Aisch for religious reasons, he retained ‘the dwelling on the Rosenberg’ until 1641. He is last recorded in the tax register in that year.
The spacious house was adorned with Gothic stepped gables and bay windows. A low outbuilding with stables enclosed a small courtyard containing a well. The Sanders lived in their new home for over 200 years, and through them the house on Rosenberg came to play a significant role in the life of the town. Johann Christoph Sander embellished the family seat on the Rosenberg by enlarging the garden; he also had the façade renovated in keeping with the spirit of the 18th century. Although he lived in the large house, physically separated from his neighbours, he maintained lively contact with the wider community. Here he welcomed many educated Protestants, including teachers, councillors, pastors and other fellow activists, and it was here that the Protestant parish council frequently met. It is also said that sermons and Holy Communion were held in secret within these walls.
His nephew Johann Daniel Sander, co-owner of the Sander spirits and wine business since 1701, took sole responsibility for the spirits business from the end of 1707, as his uncle Johann Christoph, having taken up his new post as tax collector, was occupied at the town hall several days a week and could no longer devote his full attention to the business. After a few years, the wine business was also handed over to him. From that point on, his uncle Johann Christoph confined himself entirely to the management of his numerous properties and investments.
In January 1709, Johann Daniel married, in keeping with his social standing, a daughter of the Rittershausen family, Rosina Magdalena Rittershausen. This marriage united by far the most prestigious and wealthiest families in the Protestant community. In the years that followed, until his untimely death in 1731, Johann Daniel worthily continued his uncle’s life’s work. Through inheritance and purchase, he acquired a substantial estate comprising vineyards and farmland; he also owned four houses. In 1716, he was elected to the council and served as treasurer in 1720–21.
His eldest son, Johann Reichard Sander (1713–1782), continued to run the wine merchant’s business from 1741 to 1782, but also turned his attention increasingly to the freight forwarding business, with the result that by 1762 he was regarded as the most prominent merchant in the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg. His two middle sons, Johann Heinrich (1756–1815) and Lorenz Daniel (1768–1850), jointly continued their father’s viticulture and wine trade. Through his marriage to Justina Magdalena Dedel in 1795, Lorenz Daniel acquired a house with an outbuilding and garden on Falterstraße, on the corner of Kapuzinergraben, which remained in the family’s possession until 1940.
Following the division of the business in 1818, Johann Georg Sander (1797–1860) and Gottleb Friedrich Sander (1800–1867) joined their father’s trading firm in that order. In the following generation, Franz Sander, son of Gottleb Friedrich Sander and Karoline Lotz, finally sold the original premises at 17 Rosenstraße to master joiner Andreas Rübig in 1893. This also marked the end of the ‘H. Sander & Co.’ wine merchants. However, the wine shop at 13 Falterstraße, ‘Gebr. Sander’, remained unaffected by this. It was not until 1940 that the Sander wine shop ceased trading following the death of the company’s owner, Richard Springmann (son of Henriette Sander and Louis Springmann).
Sources:
Hermann Sander, Johann Christoph Sander of the Inner Council of Kitzingen (1646–1719), Nuremberg 1932.
Karl Meyer, The Development of the Wine Trade in Kitzingen, Würzburg 1923/24.