Origins of the Rothschild Banking Empire
By James Donahue
A lot of people know and talk about the Rothschild family and its control over the world banking system. The Internet is filled with political posters depicting the faces of generations of the family under such unflattering titles as “Banksters” and “Predatory Lenders.”
So who are the Rothschilds, what is the family control over the world banking system and how did one family become so financially powerful? In our search for answers to this complex puzzle we found that the story is so old and it involves so many members and heirs of a single family that it will be hard to tell this story in a single report. To simplify things we are going to the beginning of it all.
This then is a look at the man who founded the House of Rothschild. His name is Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
He was born in 1744 in Judengasse, the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, Germany. He was one of eight children of Amschel Moses Rothschild. The family name was taken from a house his ancestors occupied that was known as “Zum Roten Schild” which means “at the sign of the red shield.”
Rothschild basically learned and inherited his father’s business, a small goods-trading and currency exchange shop in Judengasse. The family lived in a small apartment above the shop.
World events at the time were kind to Mayer Rothschild. Through relatives he secured an apprenticeship at the banking firm of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer in Hanover. There he learned skills not only in currency exchange but foreign trade. Rothschild became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse. The coin business grew and eventually expanded to include banking services to the Crown Prince, who was to become Wilhelm IX the Landgraf (or Duke) of Germany in 1785.
When the French and then American Revolutions broke out, Rothschild was quick to discover how profitable financing war can be for bankers. He began loaning money to the British government to pay for Hessian mercenary soldiers to serve combat duty in numerous Eighteenth Century European conflicts, and then the American Revolution.
The British sent an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight for the British during the American Revolutionary War. This contingent made up about a quarter of the troops the British sent to the Americas during that war.
Right after the American Revolution, the new colonial government attempted to establish a new banking system where the government issued its own value-based money. But within the year Rothschild and the European bankers established the First Bank of the United States with the help of Alexander Hamilton. This of course created the same problem that stirred the Revolutionary War.
The colonies were paying heavy interest on the loaned money to the London bankers.
At the end of a 20-year charter, with the nation’s economy in ruins, Congress refused to renew the charter. And this touched off the War of 1812, which involved Rothschild’s son, Nathan Mayer Rothschild. But that is another part of this complex story to be told at another time.
Nathan, the third-born son in the Rothschild family, was sent to England in 1798 with an estimated $1.9 million to further the family banking interests. He became a British citizen by 1804 and established a bank in the City of London, which was operating as one of the Jesuit international cities within the country. The City of London was already the heart of the world banking interests and the Rothschild family wanted to be heavily involved in its operations.
Thus by the turn of the Nineteenth Century, Rothschild was consolidated as a principal international banker. Borrowing capital from Wilhelm he began issuing international loans. Even after Napoleon invaded Germany and drove Wilhelm into exile, Rothschild continued as his banker, now investing heavily into London. He especially profited from importing black market goods that got past Napoleon’s continental blockade. His wealth and power were growing on an international scale.
Before he died in 1812 Mayer entered into a formal partnership with his three eldest sons. Nathan was established in London, Jacob was sent to Paris and the eldest son, Amschel, took over the Frankfurt bank. Eventually the other sons also became partners in what was by then the most powerful banking interests in the world. Solomon operated out of Vienna, Calmann “Carl” established a branch in Naples and Jacob opened de Rothschild Freres in Paris.
The Rothschild banking dynasty is now believed to have become the wealthiest family in human history. And it is still going strong to this day.
By James Donahue
A lot of people know and talk about the Rothschild family and its control over the world banking system. The Internet is filled with political posters depicting the faces of generations of the family under such unflattering titles as “Banksters” and “Predatory Lenders.”
So who are the Rothschilds, what is the family control over the world banking system and how did one family become so financially powerful? In our search for answers to this complex puzzle we found that the story is so old and it involves so many members and heirs of a single family that it will be hard to tell this story in a single report. To simplify things we are going to the beginning of it all.
This then is a look at the man who founded the House of Rothschild. His name is Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
He was born in 1744 in Judengasse, the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, Germany. He was one of eight children of Amschel Moses Rothschild. The family name was taken from a house his ancestors occupied that was known as “Zum Roten Schild” which means “at the sign of the red shield.”
Rothschild basically learned and inherited his father’s business, a small goods-trading and currency exchange shop in Judengasse. The family lived in a small apartment above the shop.
World events at the time were kind to Mayer Rothschild. Through relatives he secured an apprenticeship at the banking firm of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer in Hanover. There he learned skills not only in currency exchange but foreign trade. Rothschild became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse. The coin business grew and eventually expanded to include banking services to the Crown Prince, who was to become Wilhelm IX the Landgraf (or Duke) of Germany in 1785.
When the French and then American Revolutions broke out, Rothschild was quick to discover how profitable financing war can be for bankers. He began loaning money to the British government to pay for Hessian mercenary soldiers to serve combat duty in numerous Eighteenth Century European conflicts, and then the American Revolution.
The British sent an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight for the British during the American Revolutionary War. This contingent made up about a quarter of the troops the British sent to the Americas during that war.
Right after the American Revolution, the new colonial government attempted to establish a new banking system where the government issued its own value-based money. But within the year Rothschild and the European bankers established the First Bank of the United States with the help of Alexander Hamilton. This of course created the same problem that stirred the Revolutionary War.
The colonies were paying heavy interest on the loaned money to the London bankers.
At the end of a 20-year charter, with the nation’s economy in ruins, Congress refused to renew the charter. And this touched off the War of 1812, which involved Rothschild’s son, Nathan Mayer Rothschild. But that is another part of this complex story to be told at another time.
Nathan, the third-born son in the Rothschild family, was sent to England in 1798 with an estimated $1.9 million to further the family banking interests. He became a British citizen by 1804 and established a bank in the City of London, which was operating as one of the Jesuit international cities within the country. The City of London was already the heart of the world banking interests and the Rothschild family wanted to be heavily involved in its operations.
Thus by the turn of the Nineteenth Century, Rothschild was consolidated as a principal international banker. Borrowing capital from Wilhelm he began issuing international loans. Even after Napoleon invaded Germany and drove Wilhelm into exile, Rothschild continued as his banker, now investing heavily into London. He especially profited from importing black market goods that got past Napoleon’s continental blockade. His wealth and power were growing on an international scale.
Before he died in 1812 Mayer entered into a formal partnership with his three eldest sons. Nathan was established in London, Jacob was sent to Paris and the eldest son, Amschel, took over the Frankfurt bank. Eventually the other sons also became partners in what was by then the most powerful banking interests in the world. Solomon operated out of Vienna, Calmann “Carl” established a branch in Naples and Jacob opened de Rothschild Freres in Paris.
The Rothschild banking dynasty is now believed to have become the wealthiest family in human history. And it is still going strong to this day.