The Rothschilds have raised a new financial tycoon. You will soon learn about it.

On May 17, the investment bank Rothschild & Co will be headed by the seventh generation of the famous Rothschild dynasty, 37-year-old Alexander de Rothschild. For two hundred years, the family has strictly observed the precepts of the patriarch and the founder of the clan, who ordered the descendants to always act as a unit, entrust the management of the family business only to male relatives and maintain secrecy in business. The famous banking house has been involved in transactions of historic proportions for centuries. The image of all-powerful behind-the-scenes puppeteers was formed under the impression of their activities. Conspiracy theorists believe that the famous family, whose branches are widely spread in Europe and the United States, controls the world's finances with the help of the Federal Reserve System. The origins and change of generations in the famous banking clan are in this material.

Bench under a red sign

The end of the eighteenth century is an era of gigantic change for Western Europe: the revolution and overthrow of the monarchy in France, the birth of industrial production, a series of large-scale wars, the gradual loss of political influence by aristocratic landowners, and the emancipation of oppressed groups. It was at this time that the foundation of the financial power of the Rothschilds was laid. Mayer Amschel, the son of Amschel Moses, a modest money changer from the Jewish quarter in Frankfurt am Main, is considered the ancestor of the dynasty.

Mayer Rothschild, founder of the dynasty.

“Catching the trends”, Mayer Amschel started buying old coins and medals. The German nobility of that time was fond of collecting various antiquities, so the courteous and neat young man quickly made useful contacts with the powers that be, and the changer shop was transformed into a bank.

The career rise of the son of a money changer from the ghetto occurred after meeting the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel Wilhelm. Traditionally, Jewish bankers handled various financial transactions for the German princes. For example, the court bankers of the Habsburgs in Vienna were representatives of the House of Oppenheimer, the King of Prussia, Frederick II the Great, used the services of the Berlin company Ephraim and Sons. Bypassing competitors with the help of patronage and gifts to patrons, Mayer Amschel became the main court financier of Wilhelm.

All in the house

The well-being of the family went uphill sharply, the growing children were actively involved in the family business. Like fairy-tale characters throwing arrows in search of happiness, Mayer's sons dispersed to the largest cities of Europe: Solomon - to Vienna, Nathan - to Manchester (later he moved to London), Kalman - to Naples, Jacob - to Paris. The eldest son remained in Frankfurt am Main.

In memory of this, five arrows and the motto in Latin are depicted on the Rothschild coat of arms: Concordia, Integritas, Industria - Consent, Honesty, Diligence.

Coat of arms of the Rothschild family

Thus, an international financial network was founded, covering the most developed European countries. Formally competing, the brothers supported each other in every possible way and exchanged news using correspondence coded in Yiddish. Subsequently, the most viable branches of the family tree turned out to be English (from Nathan) and French (from Jacob) - they still flourish.

The court financier approached the marriages of children very seriously: the sons brought daughters-in-law with a solid dowry into the family, the spouses of the daughters were also members of the clan, but worked in lower positions. In any case, the sons-in-law did not shine at the helm of the family business. The wealth of the clan could only be controlled by a descendant of Mayer Amschel in the male line. The money earned had to remain in the family, so Mayer's descendants married first cousins and second cousins.

If someone from our family falls in love on the side, there will certainly be some nonsense in the pedigree that prevents such a marriage. So it turns out that we have a husband and wife, all twenty-fold relatives. As a result, half of the children are fools or complete idiots.

They raised their daughters in the Catholic faith, but their only son Alexander, the future heir to the family business, was in Judaism.

Also in 2010, the Rothschilds for the first time appointed a non-native Briton, Nigel Higgins, as the chief executive of investment bank NM Rothschild. True, Higgins was not a complete stranger - by this time he had worked for the family for a quarter of a century.

To whom war

The Rothschilds could have remained at the level of the small-town rich, if not for the war. In 1806, French Emperor Napoleon I invaded Germany. Landgrave Wilhelm fled the country, leaving his affairs in the care of his court banker. It was then that Mayer came in handy with his arrow, shot in the direction of Foggy Albion. Son Nathan instantly quit trading in textiles in Manchester and retrained as a stock exchange tycoon in London.

The French confiscated part of Wilhelm's gold, but Rothschild Sr., thanks to Nathan's securities transactions, managed to transfer the main capital of his boss to England. To celebrate, the landgrave signed off to the court bankers for a symbolic commission all the rights to manage his papers, and Nathan started buying and selling British government bonds. So the Rothschilds became the first European millionaires and financed the wars of Great Britain against Napoleon. One of their most notable operations is to smuggle gold for Wellington's army in Spain.

On September 19, 1812, the Russian army, exhausted by battles, under the command of Field Marshal Prince Golenishchev-Kutuzov, retreated to Podolsk. On the same day, the founder of the Rothschild house, Mayer Amschel, died in the house on the Jewish Street of Frankfurt am Main at the age of seventieth, but his business lived and grew - the wealth and influence of the Rothschild brothers increased along with the amounts of loans they provided.

Having waited for the collapse, the agents of the cunning Nathan bought up cheaper government bonds. As a result, the London Rothschild earned £40 million from this operation.

However, some researchers deny this story's credibility - Nathan bought up securities against the backdrop of defeatist sentiment before the Battle of Waterloo, they say.

The peace established in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars also contributed to the growth of the family's well-being - the countries devastated by the war needed loans to restore. The grateful victorious monarchs bestowed the nobility on the banker brothers, and the Austrian emperor Franz II granted the Rothschilds a baronial title. Napoleon tried to conquer Europe with guns and cannons, but lost. The Old World submitted to the bills and loans of the banking family.

World behind the scenes

The nineteenth century was the golden age of the Rothschilds. Europe, and with it the whole world, was changing rapidly, the Rothschild banking network financed the construction of industrial enterprises, railways, the purchase of the Suez Canal by Great Britain, and the development of oil fields in the Russian Empire (on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan).

The Rothschilds partnered with De Beers in their search for diamonds and gold in South Africa. They are accused of helping to unleash military conflicts, for example, the devastating war of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay with Paraguay. Numerous descendants of Mayer Amschel were fond of luxury and art, the construction of palaces and charity. But by the end of the century, the glory of the family began to fade. Perhaps they themselves wanted this, because money, as you know, loves silence, and left and right publicists blamed bankers for all the troubles of mankind.

In the twentieth century, Rothschild structures began to specialize in large-scale mergers and acquisitions. Conspiracy theorists consider the Rothschilds to be the mastermind behind the First Bank of the United States, the prototype of the Federal Reserve System (FRS). The dynasty is considered to be among the real masters of the system. Officially, the Fed owns 12 Federal Reserve Banks approved by the US Congress but organized as private companies.

Fulfilling covenants

Alexander Rothschild, the only son of the current head of Rothschild & Co, 75-year-old David Rene, is a direct descendant of the founder of the French branch of the Rothschilds, Jacob. After graduating from the Higher School of Foreign Trade (ESCE International Business School) in Paris, Alexander gained experience at the New York bank Bear Stearns, as well as at Argan Capital investment company in London.

He joined the family business in 2008, four years ago he became the second person of Rothschild & Co - vice chairman of the board of directors, that is, his father David. According to media reports, Alexander is fond of equestrian sports and riding.

After Alexander officially takes the helm of the company, David will look after him - he will take the position of chairman of the supervisory board. Rothschild commented on the change of generations to the Le Monde newspaper as follows:

Luck, a bit of knowledge and what has always been the main thing in the family: towards the end of a career, each Rothschild always put a family member in his place, usually choosing the best. If there was none, the worst was not chosen. The ability to do the job must be taken into account.

David René Rothschild managed the family business for over 40 years, under his leadership the Rothschilds united the British and French branches of the clan in 2007. Now more than 3.5 thousand financiers in 40 countries of the world work for the family, providing services in wealth management, consulting and commercial banking. Members of the Rothschild families own 48 percent of the Rothschild & Co. financial holding, another 10.3 percent of the shares are owned by families or partners close to the Rothschilds, and the rest of the shares are traded on the stock exchange. The capitalization of the company is 2.4 billion euros, revenue in 2017 - 1.9 billion euros, net profit - 247 million euros.

Father David Rothschild and son Alexander Rothschild. |

The Rothschild pedigree extends back 150 years.

In the Rothschild family, marriages are concluded only with representatives of the Catholic faith. Exceptions are made for women, but men are required to marry only Catholic women.

The Rothschild family tree is very confusing: all generations retained the names of their ancestors.

At every family celebration, chocolate soufflé was presented to all guests, this became a tradition over time, as the Rothschilds always had a weakness for sweets.

The history of the Rothschild family begins with the city of Frankfurt, although now it says almost nothing about this family. Once, in a small Jewish ghetto, here he married Gutele Schnapper, got a small shop, and then started five sons (out of 12 children, 10 survived). It was they who achieved incredible success, fortune and fame in the field of business. Now in Frankfurt there is a Rothschild park, several documents from the city archives, the rest of the evidence was taken away by the Second World War.

It was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) who once said: "Let me manage the money of the country, and I don't care who makes the laws there."

Where Does The Last Name Rothschild Come From?

Part of the name "Rothschild" comes from the German "mouth" - "red". Mayer Rothschild's parents once lived in a house with a red roof. The peculiarity of their house served as a nickname for their family, since in those days Jews could not have surnames.

collecting coins

Mayer Amschel's ascent began with the study and collection of ancient coins. At first, this occupation seemed completely hopeless, and given the total poverty, it was also stupid. By the way, Mayer Amschel made one fateful choice, refusing a fairly “warm” place in a money changer (Hannover) after studying in favor of a hopeless Jewish ghetto with the humiliation of its people and the inability to earn money. After 20 years of studying and practicing in the office, Mayer Rothschild returns to practically "nowhere" and as a result makes a fortune! Another proof that prospects are not always obvious.

Currency exchange

In the 18th century, Germany was like a patchwork country, where everyone spoke their own dialect and had their own currency. Mayer Rothschild could not stop selling old coins, because it was a rare and unstable income, although he managed to carry out some transactions even with monarchs. During fairs, coins of various origins flocked from all over Germany - ducats, florins, etc. It occurred to Meyer to organize an exchange office for such fairs, and he made good money on the difference from the exchange.

Founding of a dynasty

The head of the Rothschild family dreamed of a strong dynasty and did not lose by teaching his sons the skill of banking. After a while, 5 sons achieved no less success than their father. They had energy, a thirst for profit, the ability to see the prospect of income, not being greedy here and now. In 1800, a father makes his children partners. From now on, until now, key positions in banks and firms have been occupied only by family members. This was an important and fundamental law of the dynasty.

The business was only passed down through the male line and no one could gain access to it. Even the daughters' husbands remained abroad and kept in the dark. It remains so to this day.

Betty Rothschild: daughter of one of the older brothers - Solomon. She became the wife of her own uncle, younger brother James.

The head of the family always taught his children that the family is the most important thing. The bonds of brotherhood were so strong that gradually the Rothschilds introduced a new tradition into their family - to keep not only money, but also the name within the family, as the Habsburg royal family did. And the first to do so was James, the youngest son of Mayer Rothschild. On July 11, 1824, he married Betty, the daughter of his older brother Solomon, that is, his niece. History records 58 marriages that were entered into by the descendants of the elder Rothschild, and half of them were with cousins.

This policy was driven by 3 main factors:

keep the name, preventing others from profiting from it;
save capital, and not split it into small parts;
a dowry for family members of such a level as that of the Rothschilds could only be provided by the Rothschilds themselves.

Eldest son Amschel Rothschild

The eldest son, , remained to live in Frankfurt, in the house of his father, in the same poor ghetto. He never had children, but he attached great importance to the fate of his nephews and nieces, keeping the dynasty intact through family ties in marriages. It was he who introduced the tradition of holding wedding ceremonies for all family members in Frankfurt, in that same ghetto.

Dowager Gutele, the wife of the founder of the Rothschild dynasty, remained in her house until the end of her life and died at the age of 96. It was to her that the newlyweds came to ask for blessings. It was Gutele who made the final decision about choosing a partner in a new marriage.

One day, Gutele's neighbor in the ghetto ran to her house, worried that her son might be taken to a new war. She wanted to know if there would be a war. To which the Empress Dowager of Rothschild replied: "Nonsense, my boys won't let them."

On May 17, the investment bank Rothschild & Co will be headed by the representative of the seventh generation of the famous Rothschild dynasty - 37-year-old Alexander de Rothschild. For two hundred years, the family has strictly observed the precepts of the patriarch and the founder of the clan, who ordered the descendants to always act as a unit, entrust the management of the family business only to male relatives and maintain secrecy in business. The famous banking house has been involved in transactions of historic proportions for centuries. The image of all-powerful behind-the-scenes puppeteers was formed under the impression of their activities. Conspiracy theorists are sure that the famous family, whose branches are widely spread in Europe and the USA, controls world finances with the help of. The origins and change of generations in the famous banking clan - in the material.

Bench under a red sign

The end of the eighteenth century is an era of gigantic change for Western Europe: the revolution and overthrow of the monarchy in France, the birth of industrial production, a series of large-scale wars, the gradual loss of political influence by aristocratic landowners and the emancipation of oppressed groups. It was at this time that the foundation of the financial power of the Rothschilds was laid. Mayer Amschel, the son of Amschel Moses, a modest money changer from the Jewish quarter in Frankfurt am Main, is considered the ancestor of the dynasty.

The father wanted the bright boy to become a rabbi, but Mayer showed a penchant for worldly affairs. For a time he practiced at the Oppenheimer banking house in Hannover. Then he worked in his father's changing shop under a red sign (in German it sounds like Rot Schild, later this phrase became a surname). “Catching the trends”, Mayer Amschel started buying old coins and medals. The German nobility of that time was fond of collecting various antiquities, so the courteous and neat young man quickly made useful contacts with the powers that be, and the changer shop was transformed into a bank.

All in the house

The well-being of the family went uphill sharply, the growing children were actively involved in the family business. Like fairy-tale characters throwing arrows in search of happiness, Mayer's sons went to the largest cities in Europe: Solomon - to Vienna, Nathan - to Manchester (later he moved to London), Kalman - to Naples, Jacob - to Paris. The eldest son remained in Frankfurt am Main. In memory of this, five arrows and the motto in Latin are depicted on the Rothschild coat of arms: Concordia, Integritas, Industria - Consent, Honesty, Diligence.

The court financier approached the marriages of children very seriously: the sons brought daughters-in-law with a solid dowry into the family, the spouses of the daughters were also members of the clan, but worked in lower positions. In any case, the sons-in-law did not shine at the helm of the family business. The wealth of the clan could only be controlled by a descendant of Mayer Amschel in the male line. The money acquired had to remain in the family, so Mayer's descendants married first cousins and second cousins.

However, so did the entire elite. For example, by the end of the 19th century, the Austrian imperial family turned out to be so branched out that marriages between relatives belonging to different branches of the Habsburg family became more and more frequent, write Andrei Shary and Yaroslav Shimov in their book "Austria-Hungary: the fate of the empire." Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, who became heir to the throne in 1895, was indignant about this: “If someone from our family falls in love on the side, there will certainly be some nonsense in the pedigree that prevents such a marriage. So it turns out that we have a husband and wife, all twenty-fold relatives. As a result, half of the children are fools or complete idiots.

The Rothschilds entered into marriages exclusively with adherents of Judaism and won the glory of the "Jewish royal family." The rules established by Mayer Amschel remained unchanged for 200 years, only in the 1970s, David Rene, a representative of the French branch of the Rothschilds, married a Catholic, Italian aristocrat Olimpia Aldobrandini. They raised their daughters in the Catholic faith, but their only son Alexander - the future heir to the family business - in Judaism. Also in 2010, the Rothschilds for the first time appointed a non-native Briton, Nigel Higgins, as the chief executive of investment bank NM Rothschild. True, Higgins was not a complete stranger - by this time he had worked for the family for a quarter of a century.

To whom war

On September 19, 1812, the Russian army, exhausted by battles, under the command of Field Marshal Prince Golenishchev-Kutuzov, retreated to Podolsk. On the same day, the founder of the Rothschild house, Mayer Amschel, died in the house on the Jewish street of Frankfurt am Main at the age of seventieth, but his business lived and grew - the wealth and influence of the Rothschild brothers increased along with the amounts of loans they provided.

Frame: yorktheatre / YouTube

There is a legend that Nathan learned about the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo a day earlier than anyone in London, but he came to the stock exchange with a sad face and began to sell government bonds. Seeing this, the stockbrokers decided that the British and their allies were defeated, and rushed to get rid of the papers for next to nothing. Having waited for the collapse, the agents of the cunning Nathan bought up cheaper government bonds. As a result, the London Rothschild earned £40 million from this operation. However, some researchers refuse this story to be true - Nathan bought up securities against the backdrop of defeatist sentiments before the Battle of Waterloo, they say.

The peace established in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars also contributed to the growth of the family's well-being - the countries devastated by the war needed loans to restore. The grateful victorious monarchs bestowed nobility on the banker brothers, and the Austrian emperor Franz II granted the Rothschilds a baronial title. Napoleon tried to conquer Europe with guns and cannons, but lost. The Old World submitted to the bills and loans of the banking family.

World behind the scenes

In the twentieth century, Rothschild structures began to specialize in large-scale mergers and acquisitions. Conspiracy theorists consider the Rothschilds to be the masterminds of the First Bank of the United States - the prototype of the Federal Reserve System (FRS). The dynasty is considered to be among the real masters of the system. Officially, the Fed owns 12 Federal Reserve Banks, approved but organized as private companies.

There are few people on the globe who have not heard anything about the Rothschilds. Today, this surname has become a symbol of wealth. Where did these Rothschilds come from?

Descendants of a Jewish money changer

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who was born in 1744 in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), is considered the ancestor of the dynasty of famous Jewish bankers Rothschilds. His father, money changer and jeweler Amschel Moses Bauer, was a trading partner of the House of Hesse. The emblem of his jewelry workshop depicted a golden Roman eagle on a red shield, so the workshop began to be called the "Red Shield" (in German - Rothschield). Mayer Amschel took this name as his surname.

The first Rothschild entered the banking business and succeeded in doing so. Paul Johnson in The History of the Jews writes that he managed to create a new type of international company that survived a series of Jewish pogroms, wars and revolutions.

Mayer Amschel's five sons - Amschel Mayer, Solomon Mayer, Nathan Mayer, Kalman Mayer and James Mayer - founded banks in the five largest cities in Europe: Paris, London, Vienna, Naples and Frankfurt am Main.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Nathan Mayer Rothschild financed the transportation of gold bars for the army of the Duke of Wellington, and also subsidized Britain's continental allies. In 1816, the Austrian emperor Franz II granted the Rothschilds a baronial title. The family has its own coat of arms, which depicts five arrows, symbolizing the five offspring of Amschel Mayer, by analogy with the text of the 126th biblical psalm: "As arrows in the hand of a strong man, then young sons." Below is the family motto in Latin: Concordia, Integritas, Industria ("Consent, Honesty, Diligence"). The British Rothschilds were received at the court of Queen Victoria.

The Rothschilds tried to keep the fortune within the family. They entered into marriages only for convenience and until the end of the 19th century entered into marriage alliances between distant relatives. Subsequently, they began to marry representatives of influential financial families in Europe, mostly of Jewish origin: Warburgs, Goldsmiths, Coens, Raphaels, Sassoons, Salomons.

The Rothschilds are walking the world

The Rothschild family made a significant contribution to the industrialization of Europe. It contributed to the construction of a network of railways in France, Belgium and Austria and the Suez Canal, financed the foundation of the De Beers concern, the Rio Tinto mining enterprise. During the Russo-Japanese War, the London Consortium issued Japanese war bonds worth 11.5 million (at 1907 prices).

By the beginning of the 20th century, the name Rothschild had become synonymous with wealth. The Rothschilds owned more than 40 family palaces, superior in luxury to the royal castles of Europe, and extensive collections of works of art. Among other things, the Rothschilds were actively involved in charity work.

At the beginning of World War II, the Rothschilds were forced to emigrate to the United States, as the persecution of Jews began. All their property was confiscated and looted by the Nazis. In 1999, the Austrian government returned a number of palaces to the family, as well as 250 pieces of art that ended up in the state museum.

Secret rulers of the world?

Since 2003, the Rothschild investment banks have been controlled by the Swiss-registered company Rothschild Continuation Holdings, headed by Baron David René de Rothschild. The family owns numerous vineyards, it has property not only in Europe but also in North and South America, South Africa and Australia.

At the end of 2010, Baron Benjamin Rothschild issued a statement that the Rothschild clan was not affected by

global financial crisis thanks to conservative business practices. “We got through it because our investment executives didn't want to invest in crazy things. The client knows that we will not speculate with his money,” the banker said.

It is believed that the Rothschilds are the richest people in the world. In 2012, their total wealth was estimated at 1.7 trillion US dollars (other estimates say more than 3.2 trillion).

Conspiracy theorists periodically show interest in the Rothschilds. For example, conspiracy theorists claim that representatives of this clan belong to the secret society of the Illuminati and control all the finances of the world, and are also the organizers of military conflicts between various powers.

ROTHSCHILD

Coat of arms of the Barons Rothschild

(Prussia)

ROTHSCHILD (Rothschild), a family of bankers, financial magnates and philanthropists. For more than a century and a half, the surname Rothschild was, both for Jews and non-Jews, including anti-Semites, a common name - a symbol of Jewish wealth and power. The surname Rothschild is derived from the German words `rot schild` - `red shield`. Such a shield adorned the house of Yitzhak Elkhanan (died 1585), a small dealer in ancient coins and medals, in the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt am Main. Although his grandson left this house, he and other descendants continued to bear the surname Rothschild.

Mayer Anshel Rothschild -

founder the Rothschild dynasty.

The founder of the banking house Mayer Anshel Rothschild (1744, Frankfurt am Main - 1812, ibid.) at first did not differ from his ancestor either in status or occupation; Acquaintance with the German aristocrat, a passionate collector of old coins, General von Estorf, opened Mayer Anshel Rothschild access to the palace of one of the richest European monarchs of that time, Landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel.

Mayer Anshel Rothschild disposed of the multimillion-dollar fortune entrusted to him at the time of the hasty flight of the Landgraves to Prague from the Napoleonic troops (mainly by providing large loans to the Danish and other European monarchs) in such a way that he not only preserved it, but also significantly increased it, while laying the foundations of his own fortune.

Sons of Mayer Anshel

The Rothschild family was turned into a powerful financial clan by the five sons of Mayer Anshel: Anshel Mayer Rothschild (1773, Frankfurt am Main, - 1855, ibid.); Shlomo Mayer Rothschild (1774, Frankfurt am Main, - 1855, Vienna); Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777, Frankfurt am Main, - 1836, ibid.); Karl Mayer Rothschild (1778, Frankfurt am Main - 1855, Naples) and James Jacob Mayer Rothschild (1792, Frankfurt am Main - 1868, Paris). It was they who created and headed in the five largest European countries - Germany, Austria, England, Italy and France - banking houses, which during their lifetime became the main creditors of monarchs and governments.

The brothers, completely uneducated in the European sense, at first even with difficulty speaking the languages of the countries where they settled, quickly achieved a multiple increase in their fortune, won key positions in the main European capital markets and, as a result, got the opportunity to indirectly influence political events in the European continent. Representatives of the Rothschild family boldly mastered the new sectors of the economy created by the industrial revolution (in particular, railway construction and the production of non-ferrous metals in many European countries, including Russia, Asia and even Latin America).

Ancestral home of the Rothschilds

on a Jewish street in Frankfurt

The Austrian emperor granted the five brothers a title of nobility, and then a baronial title (both of which were later recognized by other European monarchs). The sons of Mayer Anshel gave their children and grandchildren an excellent education, which allowed them to take root in the upper strata of society in their countries. The major events of the Rothschild family were the election in 1847 of the son of Nathan Mayer, Baron Lionel Nathan Rothschild (1808-1879), to the House of Commons, and in 1885 the grandson of the founder of the English house of Rothschild, Nathaniel Rothschild (1840-1915), to the House lords.

Characteristically, from the end of the 19th century. - early 20th century some members of the Rothschild family began to prefer science, literature, art, state and social activities to financial and commercial interests, and often achieved success in these areas (including election to the Royal Society of London). Family members, who traditionally continued to be involved in finance and other types of business, increasingly combined them with a passion for collecting paintings, sculptures, works of applied art, porcelain, rare books, etc.

At present, only the English and French branches of the Rothschild family exist. The Italian branch of the Rothschild family lost financial and commercial importance after the death of its founder, Karl Mayer Rothschild; the German one ceased to exist with the death of Anshel Mayer's heir, Wilhelm Karl Rothschild (1828-1901); Austrian - under Louis Nathaniel Rothschild (1882-1955) in 1938 after the Anschluss of Austria by Nazi Germany. The surviving two branches, although lost in the first decades of the 20th century. their leadership in the financial world, still remain a very influential force in it.

Genealogical treethe Rothschild family

Members of the Rothschild family never forgot that they were Jews and, albeit for different reasons, always attached great importance to this. For the first generations of the Rothschilds, a combination of loyalty to their Jewishness and a pragmatic attitude towards their co-religionists, free from any sentimentality, remained typical. They strictly adhered to Mayer Anshel Rothschild's command not to renounce the faith of their ancestors under any circumstances, although they had to overcome many additional obstacles to success because of this.

None of them accepted Christianity, did not marry a non-Jew (marriages between cousins and cousins, uncles and nieces, etc., were very common among them); female members of the Rothschild family, if they married Christians (as a rule, with representatives of the most aristocratic families), usually retained their religion (for example, Hannah Rothschild / 1851-90 /, granddaughter of the founder of the London branch of the family, who joined in 1878 in marriage to Lord A. F. Rosebery, future British Prime Minister). The Rothschilds also intermarried with representatives of the largest banking houses in Europe, in particular, Eduard Rothschild (1868-1949) was married to the daughter of Matilda Fuld, granddaughter of Baron E. Gunzburg.

The descendants of Mayer Anshel Rothschild were invariably guided by another covenant received from him - in all their relationships with people (except family), they put profit and financial success above all else. Although the interests of the Jews were not indifferent to them, preference, as a rule, was given to opportunities for further enrichment. Thus, during the Napoleonic Wars, the founder of the family and his five sons accurately foresaw great benefits in remaining loyal to the European monarchs - the enemies of Napoleon I, who did not hide their intention to cancel the Jewish equality declared by the French emperor.

On the coat of arms Rothschild depicted five arrows,

symbolizing the five sons of Mayer Rothschild,

referring to Psalm 127:"Like arrows in the hands of a warrior."

Below, the family motto is written on the coat of arms, in Latin:

Concordia, Integritas, Industria (Consent, Honesty, Diligence).

However, Mayer Anshel Rothschild at the end of his life, when it did not harm the financial interests of the family, obtained the consent of Archbishop K.-T. Dahlberg, Prince Primate and President of the Confederation of the Rhine, created under the protectorate of Napoleon, to provide civil equality to the Jews. The position of the members of the Rothschild family remained the same after the Napoleonic wars, when anti-Jewish legislation was fully or partially restored in most European countries, and a wave of mass anti-Jewish demonstrations swept through many of them.

The business relations of the Rothschilds with European monarchs and governments depended little on the attitude of those towards their Jewish subjects, but where this could not harm the financial interests of the family, the Rothschilds were ready to demonstrate an interest in the fate of their co-religionists. Thus, in 1815, they facilitated the trip of a Jewish delegation to the Congress of Vienna, hoping in vain to convince its participants to accept a declaration on the civil equality of Jews in their countries. In 1819, the brothers (especially James Jacob Rothschild) themselves and through business partners just as unsuccessfully persuaded the ministers of the newly created German Confederation that it was in their own interests to stop and continue to prevent violence against the Jews (see Hep-hep; also Israel - the people in the diaspora. New time: before the completion of emancipation; from the 18th century to 1880).

Karl Mayer Rothschild

Around the same time, Karl Mayer Rothschild in Italy was trying to condition a large loan to the Pope on his assistance in abolishing the Jewish ghetto in the Italian capital. Acts of this kind were not alien to representatives of the third and subsequent generations of the Rothschild family (for example, in 1878, the Rothschilds contributed to the inclusion of the Jewish question on the agenda of the Berlin Congress, which adopted a decision that remained mostly on paper on the civil equality of Jewish minorities in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia), but they were not usually active fighters for the rights of the Jews.

For themselves, as a rule, they managed to achieve a special status: in 1842, the head of the Austrian banking house, Shlomo Mayer Rothschild, received the right to own real estate in Vienna, who before that (despite the enormous services rendered to members of the Habsburg imperial family, close relations with the all-powerful chancellor K. Metternich, noble rank and title of baron) lived with his family in the hotel "Roman Emperor" for more than 20 years.

The Rothschilds persisted in the struggle for Jewish equality, mainly when only in this way they could achieve their own goals. Thus, in 1847, when Lionel Nathan Rothschild (see above) was unable to take his seat in the House of Commons because of the need to take an oath on the gospel, the Rothschild family launched a stubborn campaign for the abolition of this rule and in 1858 achieved a repeal, which allowed Lionel Nathan Rothschild, who once again won the election, to take an oath on the Hebrew Bible.

Over time, the Rothschild family was less and less able to combine loyalty to their own Jewishness with an unwillingness to take even the smallest risk in protecting the interests of their persecuted people. This contradiction was exacerbated by the fact that the wealth, connections and influence of the descendants of Nathan Mayer Rothschild in England and James Jacob Mayer Rothschild in France made them the actual leaders of the Jewish community, sometimes formally they were part of its governing bodies: for example, Lionel Rothschild and his brother Nathaniel Rothschild in 1812-70 - to the Board of Deputies, Nathaniel also to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Jewish Community; Alphonse Rothschild (1827-1905) was president of the French Consistory Central from 1869.

The English and, especially, the French Rothschilds, who did not publicly react to the Dreyfus affair, although they tacitly provided all kinds of support to the Dreyfusards, could no longer but express their attitude to the events of the late 19th century. - early 20th century in Russia - bloody Jewish pogroms inspired by the authorities and government policy aimed at worsening the already disenfranchised position of the Jews.

So, Baron Alphonse Rothschild (see above), the head of the Parisian bank "Rothschild Frere", who had close business ties with the government (Ministry of Finance) of Russia, in response to the wave of Jewish pogroms of the 1880s. announced the termination of all financial relations with this country. In May 1891, his bank announced its refusal to fulfill an agreement signed a month earlier to provide Russia with a loan of 320 million francs.

This decision, unprecedented in the financial world, caused numerous rumors in European capitals - not everyone reacted with confidence to the official statement of the bank, in which this step was presented as a reaction to the decree of Emperor Alexander III to evict Jews from Moscow, since information about this decree appeared in the newspapers at the end of March of the same year, when the loan agreement had not yet been signed.

The French and English Rothschilds (Baron Gustav de Rothschild, 1829-1911, and Lord Nathaniel Rothschild, 1840-1915) reacted in the same way to the pogroms in Russia in 1905: they took part in organizing financial assistance to the victims of the pogroms (each of them donated for this purpose ten thousand pounds sterling) and even made sure that the collected funds were delivered to Russia through their London bank. This was motivated by the desire to prevent the use of donations for radical purposes, which would give additional food for accusations of Jewish bankers in financing the Russian revolution.

At the same time, they obstructed attempts by Jewish leaders in their countries to organize mass public protest campaigns against officially fomented anti-Semitism in Russia, arguing that this would provoke even greater hatred of Jews in Russian ruling circles. Members of the Rothschild family did not remain indifferent to the suffering of the Jews of Germany after the establishment of the Nazi regime there.

Already in the autumn of 1933 in London, Yvonne Rothschild (1899-1977), wife of Anthony Rothschild (1887-1961), founded the Society for the Aid to Jewish Women and Children in Germany; in Paris, Robert Rothschild (1880-1946) and his wife Nellie Rothschild (1886-1945) actively participated in the creation of the Fund for Relief of Jewish Refugees from Germany; in the same years, Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) took care of Jewish children who arrived in England from Germany, and James Rothschild (1896-1984) moved a Jewish orphanage (more than 20 boys aged 5-15 years and the director of the orphanage with his family ) from Frankfurt am Main to England and gave them their own home.

Lord Victor Rothschild (1910-1990) in The Times (November 19, 1938) called on the British public to take seriously the threat posed by Nazi Germany to Western democracy and all its values (during the Second World War, Victor Rothschild, a well-known scholar -biologist, contributed to the victory over Nazi Germany, in particular, he served in military intelligence).

The unity, wealth and influence of the Rothschild family has long been used, not without success, by international anti-Semitism to prove the thesis about the desire of the Jews for world domination and the enslavement of the peoples that give them shelter. Already in the 1820s. anti-Semitic cartoons appear in the newspapers of several European countries, depicting the Rothschilds as spiders sucking blood from Europe, or robbers holding European monarchs by the throat. In the anti-Semitic pamphlets of the time, the Rothschilds are referred to as "Kings of the Bankers and Bankers of Kings", "Kings of the Jews and Jews of Kings", or "Jewish Kings and Royal Jews".

From the end of the first half of the 19th century. reference to the Jewish origin of the Rothschilds becomes a favorite device of French anti-Semites. So, in 1846, when, just three weeks after the start of operation of the railway built by the Rothschild company, a catastrophe occurred that claimed 37 human lives, the anti-Semitic pamphlet “The History of Rothschild I, King of the Jews” enjoyed considerable success, in which the incident was blamed not so much the Rothschilds themselves, how much to the innate Jewish arrogance and cynicism towards the French.

For anti-Semites of the right, conservative persuasion (for example, E. Drumont, see Anti-Semitism), the Rothschilds are a symbol and embodiment of Jewish dominance in France, a secret stronghold of the radicals and revolutionaries that are destroying it. The theorist of anarchism, the anti-Semite P. Proudhon, saw in the Rothschilds the personification of the capitalist essence of the entire Jewish nation, the creator and supporter of the most inhuman bourgeois system of exploitation of the working people.

The name Rothschild is associated with a wave of anti-Semitism that swept France in the early 1880s. due to the bankruptcy of the Rothschilds' competitor, the Catholic bank "General Union", created by E. Bontu "to combat the dominance of Jewish capital", and the loss of thousands of his depositors of their savings (not only the Rothschilds were accused, but Jews in general as "foreigners plotting against Christianity and all of France). Later, the name Rothschild was turned into the most sinister character in the racially anti-Semitic mythology of National Socialism.

The attitude towards the Rothschilds in the Jewish people itself was far from unambiguous. In the image of the Rothschilds that has developed in Jewish folklore, admiration for the wealth, power and luxurious life of fellow believers was combined with a considerable amount of plebeian irony in relation to the swagger and arrogance of the rich and to their own absurd dreams of being in their place. This folklore image appears in the works of Shalom Aleichem, numerous anecdotes, parables, sayings, folk songs, etc.

The more complex attitude towards the Rothschilds of the socially and politically active sections of the Jews became especially evident in the twenty years between 1881 and 1901, when a wave of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe poured into Western Europe. Sincerely wishing or considering himself obliged to help the crowds of these destitute and needy Jews (Lord Nathaniel Rothschild, for example, as a member of the royal commission created in 1909, designed to limit the further influx of emigrants to Great Britain, selflessly fought to ensure that the restrictions imposed were as little as possible related to Jews), the Rothschilds came across a generally sharply critical attitude towards themselves on the part of Jewish immigrants.

For the majority of them, the Rothschilds' aim to promote the speedy naturalization, social and cultural acclimatization of newly arriving Jews in Western society turned out to be unacceptable. This attitude was unanimously, albeit for different reasons, rejected by the three main groups of immigrant Jews: natives of urban and small-town ghettos, who spoke freely only in Yiddish, strictly observed religious precepts and strove to preserve such a way of life in the new conditions; hardened by persecution and humiliation in the countries where they lived, radical elements who joined the ranks of left-wing extremist parties and organizations and advocated the revolutionary overthrow of Western state and public institutions; Zionists, who saw in such an attitude a direct path to assimilation.

The sharp and impassioned denunciations of the activists of all these immigrant groups against the Rothschilds and other "smug and selfish Jews" who are only interested in their own profits often differed little from the attacks from the anti-Semites. The Rothschilds reacted painfully to this criticism, but at the same time, according to many, they gave good reasons for it. In particular, the nationally oriented circles of Jewry did not forgive the Rothschilds for their sharply negative attitude towards Zionism.

Like other wealthy Jews, the Rothschilds did not refuse to support the presence of their orthodox co-religionists in Jerusalem, where back in the 1850s. James Jacob Rothschild and his wife Betty founded a hospital for the poor, and in the 1860s. with the money of the London Rothschilds, the still existing school for girls named after Evelina de Rothschild was opened there (in memory of the daughter of Lionel Rothschild, who died untimely shortly after the wedding).

The situation was different with political Zionism, in which the Rothschilds from the very beginning saw a threat to all their life principles and guidelines. Based on their own experience, they believed that Jews could and should successfully integrate in the countries where their fate had thrown them, and that anti-Semites and racists would not fail to use the idea of creating a sovereign Jewish state in Eretz-Israel and mass resettlement of Jews there as proof of the validity of their statements. about the ineradicable separatism and alienation of the Jews to the European peoples.

The Rothschilds even accused the Zionists of giving anti-Semites grounds to demand the complete expulsion or at least every encouragement for the emigration of Jews from Europe. The long rejection of Zionism by the Rothschild family also had a purely pragmatic basis - seeing in it nothing but groundless schemes, they did not want to associate their name with an "adventure" that would certainly end in financial bankruptcy and political scandal. In this regard, all the other Rothschilds were greatly worried about the position and activities of Edmond de Rothschild, who, while remaining in opposition to political Zionism for a long time, still refused to publicly condemn him.

It was only after the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that certain members of the Rothschild family began to treat Zionism more favorably, when its political goals ceased to look completely fantastic in their eyes. Even the second Lord Rothschild, Nathaniel, in the last months of his life changed his inflexible assimilatory position to an almost pro-Zionist one.

For some time, his son Lionel Walter, Lord Rothschild (1868-1937), was very actively involved in the activities of the Zionist organization of Great Britain, to whom, as the most prominent Jew in the country, he addressed his letter outlining the obligation of the British government to promote the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, the Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Balfour.

Even the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the numerous wars in which it had to defend its existence, arousing great interest and sympathy among most members of the Rothschild family, did not turn them into supporters of Zionism. Baron Guy de Rothschild (1909-2007), author of the best-selling autobiographical book Against Luck (1983), seemed to express the general feelings of the members of this family when he admitted that Israel was not their country, its banner was not theirs. banner, but that the courage and military prowess of the Israelites filled their hearts with pride, made them less vulnerable to hostile attacks, brought the release of some important part of their "I". These feelings stimulate in some members of the Rothschild family the desire to participate in the construction of the Jewish state.

Thus, Victor Rothschild (see above), who did not consider himself a Zionist, actively supported Israel in the field of science (he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Weizmann Research Institute and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem), attracted British public opinion to the side of Israel and , according to rumors, contributed to the formation of Israeli intelligence (attacks on him for this in the English press contained allusions to his lack of loyalty to the British fatherland).

Rothschild Park in Israel

In the field of economics and finance, the great-grandson and namesake of the "father of the Jewish Yishuv", Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1926-97), who financed the construction of the country's first oil pipeline from the Red to the Mediterranean Sea and one of the first chemical plants, was especially distinguished State Bank of Israel (Bank Israel) and some other projects.

The well-known and widely advertised philanthropic activities of the Rothschild family are by no means limited to Israel - they, as in the past, donate large sums not only to Jewish, but also to non-Jewish hospitals, schools, kindergartens, orphanages, cultural and scientific foundations, etc. ., wanting to show that they are both good Jews and good French and English.

Eprussi Rothschild Museum on the French Riviera

The contribution to many areas of Israeli life by the Rothschild Foundation, established in 1957 by Dorothy Rothschild (1895-1988), wife of James Armand Rothschild (1878-1957), is noticeable: educational television was created in the country with its funds, the Open University was founded and a number of departments in other universities (for example, the Institute for Advanced Study and the Center for Adult Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Faculty of Nursing at Tel Aviv University), a Music Center was built in the Jerusalem district of Mishkenot Shaananim, exhibitions and expositions are organized in the Israel Museum, equipped with modern equipment new hospitals, nursing homes for the disabled, student scholarships, Rothschild Prizes for achievements in the exact sciences, and much more. The ballet ensemble that bears her name, created in 1964 at the expense of Baroness Bat-Sheva Rothschild (1914-99), enjoys great popularity in the country and abroad.

In subsequent years, there was a certain cooling of the Rothschild family towards the State of Israel, both due to the increasing departure of some of its members from the Jews (for example, the current Lord Rothschild Nathaniel Charles / was born in 1936 / converted to Christianity and is married to a non-Jew), and due to frequent disagreement of the government circles of the country with their advice and recommendations. However, a number of facts testify that the members of the Rothschild family did not refuse to participate in the life of the Jewish state. Thus, the new building of the Supreme Court of Israel was built at the expense of the Rothschild Foundation (1992).