Volume 24, Number 2 · February 17, 1977
Imperial Germany's Jewish Banker
By A.J.P. Taylor
Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire
by Fritz Stern
Knopf, 620 pp., $17.95
Gerson Bleichröder rose highest of all Jews in Imperial Germany. He was the Rothschild of Berlin, his wealth second only to Alfred Krupp's. He was the first Prussian Jew to become a 'von' without conversion to Christianity. What carried him to greatness was his association with Bismarck. Bleichröder was Bismarck's financial agent and adviser for more than thirty years—from the early days when Bismarck was Prussian representative at the Frankfurt Diet until his own death in 1893. He handled Bismarck's private accounts and directed Bismarck's investments on a basis profitable to both. Throughout these thirty years Bismarck saw more of Bleichröder than of any minister or diplomat, perhaps more even than of Emperor William I.
Review, 2574 words
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