Trudy Gold
Jews in Bismarck’s Germany, Part 2

Trudy Gold - Jews in Bismarck’s Germany, Part 2

- Anyway, this is the second part of the story of the Jews under Bismarck. And just to recap, because I know some of you were a bit confused about the timings last week, on Tuesday, as was I, by the way, so basically Jews are fully emancipated by Bismarck after German unification. What had happened between 1815 and 1871, depending on what part of Germany one was talking about, is that some rights were given, some rights were taken away. And as we looked at last week, it was a time of much soul-searching and much soul agony for many Jews in Germany. There’s no doubt there was this love affair. Heine, at one stage, remember he said the two ethical nations, the Jews and the Germans, will create a new Jerusalem in Germany, and in another article, he actually said that there is a real problem between the Jews and the Germans. So there are many, many ambiguities in it. But what is also true, and this is something that I think we should treat with a kind of reverence, if it hadn’t ended so horrifically, we would be looking at this period of Jewish history and German history, and I’m talking now about all the Jews working in the German language, it was an incredible period of the most artistic, cultural ferment. It’s as though the… Look, what did Yuri Slezkine say? The modern world is made for the Jews. They enter modernity, they take it by the throat, and it doesn’t really matter what trade, what discipline, what part of the arts or the sciences they went into. Out of all proportion of their numbers, they actually changed the world we live in today. And that was an incredible story. Having said that, they come into a Germany where they now see themselves as German Jews. They are Jews of the Mosaic… They are Germans of the Mosaic persuasion.

And as we’ve already established, many of them converted. Because to go back to the Isaiah Berlin notion, these people from another planet… You remember the quote of Fritz Stern, he said it’s almost as though the last thousand years had prepared them for the universities of Germany. So you have this incredible, you have this incredible explosion of talent, and these people fall in love. And the problem was, according to the Isaiah Berlin parable, how did the people already living there regard them? Well, if they were benign, they saw them as exotic strangers. If not, as enemy aliens. And next week, I’m actually going to look at the rise of racial antisemitism. This week, I want to continue with the visible success story of the Jews. Now, let me make it absolutely clear, many of the Jews I am talking about no longer saw themselves as Jews, particularly when we talk about the West. Last week, I looked at Bismarck, his policies towards the Jews, and I began to look at his banker, I looked at Bleichroder, I looked at Henry Strousberg. So on one level, you have the notion of Jews as capitalists, but now I need to look at Jews on the opposite end of the scale because all these characters are working as individuals. But the problem was that three individuals, Marx, Lassalle, and of course, Rosa Luxemburg, they are going to be symbols in Germany of international communism, and the problem was they were all born Jewish. So consequently, later on, we’re going to get this bizarre notion that the Rothschild-Marx exist.

And if you don’t believe me, think about conspiracy theories today. And next week, I’m going to look at where they all come from. But the point is we’re going to see Jews in very important positions on the West, on the left of German politics. And so, we’ve talked about German capital and German capitalism. These are just individuals succeeding they hope as Germans. Who could have been more German than Bleichroder? Who could have been more German than so many of these characters? But when you look at Marx and when you look at Lassalle and when you look at Rosa Luxemburg, they have a different dream. They want to tear down all the differences between peoples to create an international world without boundaries. And many writers would say, it is in fact only Jews who could think like that. So can we see the first picture, please? There you have Karl Marx, the grandson of rabbis on both sides. And the point about Marx, he absolutely hated his Jewish origins, and I’m going to talk about that next week. But it was Marx who flees to England in 1848. You will remember he was in Paris for a while, he was a cousin of Heine’s. He goes to England, and in England, with Engels, The Communist Manifesto. And think of the first line, “Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.” And of course, that’s capital, and it’s Marx who really is the symbol of international revolution. But in Germany, in particular, it is a character called Ferdinand Lassalle. Can we see his picture, please, Judy? Lassalle is a fascinating individual. Now, let’s talk a little bit about the fertile ground that Lassalle worked on. Now, it’s important to remember that they were the most appalling working conditions in Berlin.

Look, on one level, the French had to give a huge indemnity to the Germans for the Franco-Russian War. So in 1871, Berlin exceeded its wildest dreams in terms of glitter and gaiety and, if you like, money, and the property and middle classes grew wildly rich, then of course, you have the stock market crash. But what about the working classes? By the 1870s, adult working 17 hours a day. Cheap labour kept German textiles competitive. Remember, Bismarck wants to create Germany as the industrial hub of the world. And by 1914, we’re going to see that the movement that Lassalle created, the social-democratic movement, the Communist Party, was the largest in the world with 170 members. Now, there were 500 wholesale garment dealers in Berlin. The human life, the human cost was unbelievable. The life expectancy of workers in the textile business was 26 years old, which really takes us back to the Middle Ages. By 1900, industrial workers in Berlin made up 60% of the population. And last time, I told you about the slums they lived in. 60,000 people living in coal cellars. In fact, cabaret was born in these big tenement blocks as a satire, as a kind of release from the horror. Compared with London, and we know a lot about Mackenzie in London, 43% of the workers in London and 38% in Paris, but in Germany, it is 60%. And as a response to that, mainly through the work of Ferdinand Lassalle, over 60 workers’ education centres have been founded because Lassalle understood he needed to educate the working classes. If you’re going to have a revolution, you need a literate, educated, working class. And in the main, these movements are actually founded by liberals. Never forget that in Germany, there is also a liberal tradition. There is the tradition of Goethe and Schiller. There’s the tradition of the Enlightenment. Don’t forget that. And it didn’t have to go the way it went. And of course, Bismarck and the Kaiser were terrified by any change. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Lassalle.

He was a man of huge contradictions. He defied the liberal agenda. He was a brilliant orator. And it was he to explain to the workers that they should demand more than honorary membership of the bourgeoisie. It was he who puts Red Berlin on the map. Ironically, at certain times, he was close to both Karl Marx and to Bismarck. And this is a quote on Lassalle from Karl Marx, “Not only does Lassalle consider himself to be the greatest scholar, the most profound thinker, the most gifted investigator, he also thinks he’s both Don Juan and Cardinal Richelieu.” He had many, many clashes with Marx. He was often bailing Marx out of trouble. In fact, there’s a very interesting letter that Marx wrote to Lassalle from Dusseldorf. “Dear Lassalle, at your club, you should resolve the following, general refusal to pay taxes, to be advocated especially in the rural areas, dispatch of volunteer corps to Berlin,” this is in 1848, “cash remittance to the Democratic Central Committee in Berlin. Privately, if you could send me some money, whether it be the 200 talers or the amount for the loan certificates, you would greatly oblige me. Send it to my wife. I have had a summons today, and it’s generally agreed I shall be arrested tomorrow.” By the way, Lassalle himself had problems with his Jewishness. He said, “There are two classes of men I couldn’t bear, journalists and Jews, and unfortunately I belong to both of them.” So basically, you have Lassalle agitating in Germany. And he has huge differences with Marx. Marx believed in the international and the final withering away of the state.

Lassalle wanted to change the state. Unfortunately, he was a real Don Juan. He’s this brilliant orator who had come from a religious family, but had broken away. He never converted. But he makes his reputation in a legal case where he secures the rights of a countess in a divorce. He becomes part of the fashionable Berlin scene. You can see from his picture, he was very much a dandy, he was an attractive fellow. Ironically, he is going to die in a duel over a Hungarian countess. Ironically, it was Bismarck’s hatred of liberalism that led to him becoming a friend with Lassalle. But obviously, they would’ve parted company because Bismarck, more than anything else, he stood for Kaiser, autocracy, militarism. But we are going to see that mainly because of Disraeli, and William will be doing this with you, that he is going to try and alleviate the social conditions of the poor. Because remember that great quote of Disraeli’s, “When the cottages are restive, the stately homes should tremble.” Now, this is a quote from Elie Halevy, a very good historian on Lassalle, “Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organising a party of socialist action. Yet he viewed the emerging bourgeoisie parties as more inimical to the working class than the aristocracy, and hence he supported universal male suffrage at a time when the liberals preferred a limited, property-based suffrage would excluded the working classes and enhanced the middle classes. This created a strange alliance between Lassalle and Bismarck. And when in 1866, Bismarck founded the North German Confederation on a basis of suffrage, he was acting on advice which came directly from Ferdinand Lassalle.”

Now, the point about him is he is the man who created communism in Germany. And although he was uneasy about his Jewish background, nevertheless he’s going to be seen as the Jew and the third of the triumvirate who later on is going to read, who is going to actually lead the revolution in Berlin at the end of the First World War. Rosa Luxemburg. She was born in Zamosc in Poland. Very early on, she becomes attracted to the working class movements. Can we see her face please, Judy? There you see her. And can we read a quote of hers on Berlin? This is what she says about the hunger in Berlin, “Every day, hundreds of homeless people die in Berlin, broken by hunger and cold. Nobody notices. It doesn’t appear in the police reports.” So basically, this is the woman who is a friend of most of the international leaders, left-wing leaders from country to country. And I can never overemphasise this point, the problem was the majority of Jews in Germany, in Vienna, in London, in Paris were bourgeois. You have a small group of very wealthy, but a disproportionate number of the leadership of these emerging working class parties, working classes, the industrial proletariat because of industrialization and urbanisation that a disproportionate number of the leadership are Jewish.

And that is what leads to the whole notion that all Jews are communists, and of course, the other side of the coin, all Jews are capitalists. Well, in fact, the real story was Jews were Jews were Jews. They quarrelled amongst themselves and they never worked together. Although later on, when I look at the growth of antisemitism, I talk about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, what the enemies say is that every Jew is then in league with every other Jew. So Rosa Luxemburg, this is a very interesting letter she wrote about how she felt about her Jewishness. She wrote this letter to a friend of hers, Mathilde Wurm, and this is what she says, she’s reproaching her friend and she says, “But look, girl, if you so rarely find the opportunity to take a book into your hand, at least make a point of reading good books, not such kitsch as the Spinoza novel you have just sent me. Why do you come with your particular Jewish sorrows? I feel equally close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putumayo or to the Negroes in Africa with whose bodies the Europeans are playing catch ball. Do you remember the words elicited by the General Staff’s work on Trotha’s campaign in the Kalahari desert? The rattling in the throats of the dying and the mad screams of those who are withering from thirst, faded away into the sublime stillness of the infinite. Oh, this sublime stillness of the infinite in which so many screams faded away unheard. It reverberates within me so strongly that I have no separate corner in my heart for the ghetto.” Let me repeat this. “It reverberates within me so strongly that I know I have no separate corner in my heart for the ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.”

So what I’ve given you, I hope, is a taste of the left in Berlin. But now let’s look at interesting group of other individuals who are really going to take Germany by the horns and they’re going to push it forward in every possible direction. And of course, I have left out the scientists, and I am actually going to look in a separate session on Fritz Haber. But don’t forget the Paul Ehrlich who create the cure for Salvarsan. Don’t forget the Jews who go into this new discipline, sociology, at the University of Berlin, which wasn’t founded until 1810. There is a huge influx of Jews, particularly into the sciences, law, medicine, so much so that the Germans themselves, the German students, become incredibly reactionary and refuse to deal with Jews. So let me just read a comment by an English traveller, he’s called Shepherd Thomas Taylor, and this is what he writes of 1870’s Berlin, “Jews inhabit the best houses in the best quarters of town, drive about the parks in the most elegant equipages, figure constantly in the dress circle at the operas and theatres, and this and in other ways excite a good deal of envy in the minds of their less fortunate Christian citizens.” So an Englishman… Look, Jews made up by 1900 8% of the population of Berlin. They are under 1% of the population of Germany. But as I mentioned to you, something like 50% are the doctors, 50% are the lawyers, and they’re very much at the forefront of modernity. Now, here you have a huge change in politics. Kaiser Wilhelm I dies age 91. His son, Frederick, succeeds him. Frederick the liberal, who had responded to the rise in antisemitism by actually going to the synagogue, and I’ll talk about that next week.

His wife, Victoria, who was of course the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, was horrified. What he wanted to create was a liberal democracy in Germany very much along British lines. The tragedy for Germany, this is one of the great ifs and buts of history, if he had lived, Germany would’ve gone in a completely different direction. But he died of throat cancer after 100 days. And who takes the throne? His erratic, damaged son, Wilhelm II, who also dismissed Bismarck, because Bismarck ruled by imperial decree. And from then on, Germany hurdles. So 1888 is very important. It is the year of the three emperors in that one brief span. But by the time Kaiser Frederick III is emperor, he can hardly speak and he’s much too ill to implement his reforms. And when Wilhelm takes the throne, he is so appalling to his mother. In fact, I would suggest you read a very, there are many good biographies on Kaiser Wilhelm. I would recommend John Rohl’s masterful work, “The Kaiser and his Court.” But also read a biography of the Empress Victoria, she was a fascinating woman, she’d married Frederick when she was 17, she was the adored eldest child of Prince Albert, who was also a liberal, and the letters between her and her mother and her father before he died young. What they really wanted to do in Germany was to emulate Britain. Can we see the next slide? There you see the beautiful University of Berlin, which I mentioned to you last week. The Humboldt brothers, the liberal university, but we’re going to find out it’s going to become almost a schizoid place, the Janus-faced.

You’re going to have liberalism, but you’re also going to have a whole group of professors who want to take Germany back to that period in German history when Germany was great. Völkisch Germany, Germany of blood and soil, and Wagner, and Teutonic myth. But as I said, particularly in chemistry and in physics and in the law and in medicine and in philosophy, you see a disproportionate number of Jewish students. Now, I want to look at some of the, and I could have chosen many characters but because I like biography, I want to look at some extraordinary individuals who are born in Germany, who take modernity by the horns and push it forward. And it’s no accident that they come from a Jewish background because they are the real outsiders. Now, Reuters, the man who started it, he was born Israel Beer Josaphat and his father was a rabbi. Now in Gottingen, he met Johann Friedrich Gauss who was a mathematician and a physicist who was experimenting with telegraph while working as a clerk. He’s interested in the transmission of electrical signals, and Josaphat began to consider how best to use the new technology. He becomes fascinated by it, and he actually moves to London. Now in London, he changes his name to Julius Josaphat, he converts to Christianity in a Lutheran church in London, and he emerges as Paul Julius Reuter. He marries a woman called Ida Magnus, a daughter of a German banker, and they are both converted. Now, he had been involved before he came to London in publishing houses, and in Paris, he’d worked for another publishing house, the future Agence France-Presse.

And in 1850, he set up a carrier pigeon service between Aachen and Brussels, which were the terminal points of German and French-Belgian telegraph lines. As the telegraph evolved, he founded his own agency. He’s transferring messages between Brussels and Aachen carrier pigeon and linking Paris and Berlin. It gave him the fastest access to financial news from the post. You’ve got to remember, this is what the Rothschilds did. Information, you’ve got to remember that this is the days of the beginnings of global communication. And this is something absolutely brilliant, a telegraph line was under construction between Britain and Europe, and that’s why Reuter moved permanently to London. He rented an office near the Stock Exchange. He becomes very rich and very famous, and he presented by the Court by Gladstone. In 1865, he was the first to bring news to London of the assassination of Lincoln. He becomes involved in all sorts of deals in the Arab world. But what I want to read to you is he actually, he understood people’s appetite for news. You should read biographies of Reuter. This is a memo of 1883 to his correspondents. This is what he’s telling them he wants news to be transmitted, “Fire, explosion, floods, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks attended with loss of life, accidents to war vessels and to mail steamers, streets riots of a grave character, disturbances arising from strikes, duels between, and suicides of people of note, social or political murders of a sensational or atrocious nature. It is requested that the bare facts be first telegraphed with utmost promptitude, and as soon as possible a descriptive account, proportionate to the gravity of the incident.”

So I’ve just given you a glimpse into the character of Paul Julius Reuter. He became a Christian. How religious was he? Not at all. But his sons, his children, in the main, married into the British aristocracy. So an extraordinary individual, a Jew. He had to be a Jew, didn’t he? Because they are the outsiders. Let’s have a look at the next one. Here you see Leopold Ullstein. Now, what did he do? He was born in Furth, in Bavaria. He created one of Germany’s largest publishing houses. All of his five sons entered the business. He published many of Berlin’s leading newspapers. Now, of course, it continues way after his death. And of course, it was Aryanized under the Nazis, but when it was Aryanized, the company was actually valued at 60 million marks. It was sold for six marks. His son, Felix, continued the firm in America. After the war, it was restored to the family, financial difficulties, Axel Springer took over, and the the book-publishing were finally sold to Random House. But Ullstein, one of the most important publishing houses in Germany, published, Ullstein and the next one, Mosse, the two Jewish entrepreneurs, he remained Jewish, the two entrepreneurs who controlled something like 90% of all the newspapers and magazines. And you can imagine what the right-wing press made of it. It’s Jewish-controlled. What on earth did they have in common with Karl Marx or even with each other? They were rivals. But that is not the point. Rudolf Mosse, he also had an interesting background. He’s born in Posen. His father was a well-to-do Jewish physician. He went into the book-printing business as an apprentice. Advertising was not yet developed in Germany. And age 24, he realised this would be a brilliant way of increasing the money you could achieve from the newspapers. So he opens an agency in Berlin.

He extends it through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And his printing establishment, which was founded in 1872, becomes the largest in the world. He was an extraordinary man. He was a great philanthropist. He had a huge fund for all his employees. He built a hospital in Posen. He founded an institution for poor children. And in a borough of Berlin, he actually created the Emperor and Empress Frederick Hospital. He was a great patron of the arts. He helped many of the secessionist movement. He helped many of the avant-garde artists in Germany. Remember, Jews are outside the system. He was a patron of many of the writers. He was a man of great refinement. He also was a proud Jew. He represented… When I say “a proud Jew,” he was a reformed Jew. And Rabbi Jeremy Rosen is going to talk about the development of reform, or has he also done it this week? My head isn’t where it should be. He represented the Jewish community of Berlin for 10 years as a reform in the Reform congregation. One of his six brothers went into business with him, Another became a very famous jurist. He’s buried in the Weissensee Cemetery. I should mention, those of you who go to Berlin, Weissensee, which used to be in East Berlin, when I first went there, it was in East Berlin, it’s an extraordinary place to visit because it gives you the story of German Jewry. You see great tombs of the rich and the famous buried alongside rabbis, buried alongside writers, and it doesn’t have the horror because it was closed as a cemetery before the war. There’s now a memorial.

But the point is, if you go to Berlin, it’s an absolute must to see so that you get a feel of the huge discrepancy as it were between the kind of careers that Jews went in for. After his death, his son-in-law, Hans Lachmann-Mosse, took over the company. And unfortunately, much of it was lost in the hyperinflation And of course, as I’m sure you all know, it was Aryanized after the Nazi takeover, and his huge art collection was auctioned. Now, since March 2017, the Mosse Art Research Institute has actually been researching the appropriation and to try and discover some of the works of art. This is still a huge scandal. What happened to some of the great art collections of Germany, and how many of these works of art are in museums and still in private collections? His son-in-law, Hans, married the only child of Rudolf, dismissed designers “as physical, economically, and politically impossible.” And he actually commissioned Mendelsohn to redesign the Mossehaus. Mendelsohn, of course, the great Erich Mendelsohn, the great architect, and in fact, Germany’s loss, he was Britain and America’s gain. And England has some wonderful Mendelsohn buildings. But it was his son-in-law who commissions Mendelsohn to create the Mossehaus. Goring actually wanted to make the son-in-law an Honorary Aryan. He refused, and all the family did manage to escape. So I’m giving you just thumbnail sketches of people that I hope you eventually will delve into because they are fascinating. You know, it’s interesting, you’ve got a similar pattern in France, you’ve got a similar pattern in Vienna, and you’ve got a similar pattern in Britain. If you were to wander down a high street in the ‘60s, you would find something like 80% of the fashion and wholesale and food businesses were in Jewish hands. It’s the service industry. It’s knowing what people want. It’s no accident that Jews go into show business so much. There’s a wonderful quote of Louis B. Mayer, he said, “I don’t care how it goes down in New York. Is it going to work in Peoria, Illinois?” This knowledge of what people want before they even want it, and to kind of lighten it.

There’s a wonderful quote of, I think it was one of the mothers of the moguls, she said, “It’s a wonderful business. The film business is the best business of all because people actually buy the goods before they even see them.” Anyway, let’s now go on to the next character, Hermann Tietz. And of course, Hermann Tietz, the great storeman. He brought department stores to Germany from America. As you know how department stores started in America, think the opening up of the Wild West. In the main, Jewish peddlers doing the homestead run and what do they have to take in their carts, everything a homestead would need. So it would be tinned goods from Europe, luxury goods, it would be thread and calico for the making of things, it would be anything that a farm that was totally isolated by about two or 300 miles would need. Now, when they made enough money, they set up the general store. Most of the general stores in the Wild West were actually owned by Jews. Then, transfer the idea back to where? Back to New York, back to Chicago. And those of you in America are listening, of course, you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about all the great department stores. So consequently, he is the man who brings it back. He opens his first store in Thuringia. It’s actually opened by his, he’s got a big family, it’s opened by his nephew. In 1900, he opened a store in Berlin. It was located close, to their time, which was the biggest store in Europe. These stores are like palaces. They become… He, at his height, employed 13,000 people. He had 10 stores in Berlin. And the family divided the market into two spheres of influence. Hermann and Oscar in the South and East, and also in Belgium.

And when Hermann died, it was the largest concern of any kind in Europe. Oscar Tietz developed the manufacturing side of the business because it’s much cheaper if your stores are inhabited by stuff that you’ve made yourself. And this is 1932, the anniversary, this is the Jewish Telegraph Agency, “The Tietz firm is still a family enterprise, conducted by Oscar’s sons, Georg and Martin, and his son-in-law, Hugo Zwillenberg.” Of course, it’s Aryanized by the Nazis. Martin migrated to Liechtenstein as it’s seized by the Gestapo. And then George Karg, the new Aryan owner, changed it to, and I’m sure those of you who visit Germany know, to Hertie. The Hertie Department Stores were originally Jewish. In 2020, the Hertie Foundation, it’s the largest charitable organisation in Germany, it’s still not properly addressing its Nazi past. After the allied victory, the family did receive 5 million Deutsche marks and they got some of their art back, but it’s small compared with the real story. And on Kristallnacht, the son-in-law was arrested by the Gestapo. He was taken to Sachsenhausen, he was released, he immigrated to Holland with his family. He becomes the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Nicaragua. And unfortunately in 1943, to Westerbork, and then to a French internment camp, but he’s involved in a prisoner exchange. He returned to Holland and he actually stayed on as Consul General for San Marino. So that’s what happened to the family. But again, a terrible story. Can we go on please, Judy? Ah, here you have Abraham Adolf Jandorf. Now, the KaDeWe, many of you will have been to the KaDeWe. It’s one of the greatest department stores in the world, and it attracts 50,000 visitors each day, and it was the brainchild of Abraham Adolf Jandorf.

He came from a poor Jewish family, he’s the second of seven children. His father was a butcher and a cattle dealer, and his wife, Rika. He was apprentice, like it’s very much a Jewish pattern. He’s apprentice to a small manufacturing business. And in 1890, he went to America to track down his eldest brother, who he found working as a streetcar conductor. And in his stay, he visits Macy’s, he visits Bloomingdale’s. In the 1890s, he worked for a Hamburg textile company, which was actually owned by Rothschild. He was brilliant at business. Age 22, he was commissioned by the head of the company, Jakob Emden, to establish a small business in Berlin. He gave him an advance of 500 million marks. After six weeks, he opened his own store selling cheap trimmings, haberdashery, woollen goods. Contrary to the agreement, he named the store, A. Jandorf & Company. He married a Jewish woman called Margarete Hirschfeld, who was the daughter of a banker, and he produced a son and built a second largest store. He always located his stores at strategically well-placed street corners. And in 1922, he had his main building enlarged. It became the seventh largest building, the department store, and it made absolute history, and because the KaDeWe has five stories, it has 120 departments. Now remember, this is before the turn of the century.

It had hairdressing salons, a travel agency, refreshments. This is so new. We take it as granted today. It had a tea room, a photographic studio, again modernity, a lending library. Evidently, the king of Siam spent two days shopping and he spent 250,000 marks and made Jandorf the Honorary Consul of Siam. So in 1927, he sells to Tietz, and he died. He’s buried in the Weissensee. His son and his brothers all made it to America. And in 1936, all his possessions were sold off. On September the 14th of 2020, a memorial plaque was erected in his hometown. So this is the man who created KaDeWe, which for many visitors in Berlin, it’s one of the sites you have to see. Let’s have a look at another one, Wertheim. Georg Wertheim, born in Stralsund, near the Baltic. He and his brother took over their parents’ haberdashery shop. They had very innovative ideas, the customers were allowed to replace goods they didn’t like, prices were fixed, and only cash purchases. They opened another branch in Rostock and founded their first Berlin branch in 1885. They realised the changing demands of a modern industrial city, and they opened their first real department store in Berlin. Brilliant, what they were famous for, was the presentation of goods, the shop floor, very generous space. And Georg had furthered his education at the Berlin Art Academy and met a previously unknown architect, a man called Alfred Messel. And they developed the concept of building specifically designed for sale of goods. This is the first one, it’s in Leipzig Street. So they designed through Messel who, by the way, is the great uncle of Antony Armstrong-Jones, who married Princess Margaret. They are brilliant at window display and the display of goods. I remember when I used to teach in Russia before communism fell, I used to go to the GUM Department Store just to look in the window and they had tins just piled up. And that was under communism.

But their time, he understood, you know, showcasing goods. And what happened was he gradually, it becomes, if you like, the Galeries Lafayette, which was also owned by a Jewish family of Berlin. Along with Arthur Messel, they were involved in the creation of the Pergamon Museum. And he also, Messel went on to design the tomb of Walther Rathenau. Anyway, of course, in 1933, it was Aryanized. The president, Georg, was married to a Gentile, so she was made principal shareholder. And Georg died in 1939. The family later did receive some compensation. The descendants live today both in America and in Germany. So I’ve given you a taste of the department store owners. Let’s have a look at another kind of character. There you see the great department stores of Berlin. Can we actually go back to them because they are really the wonders of the world and people talked about them, people visited Berlin to see them. You can see the Tietz Building. It’s such a wonderful building. I mean, when Patrick teaches, he often uses these buildings as, you know, representatives of art. They are incredible. It was like you could go out for the day. It’s a great day’s outing. And these are invented by on-the-edge Jewish entrepreneurs who have a smell of what people want. Remember, the middle classes have money to spend now. The working classes are a different story.

And something else I want to say before I go on, I’m talking about wealthy Jews who built incredible palaces but they never really had any power in Germany. They might have wanted to be part of the social elite. But who were the real social elite of Germany, of Berlin, particularly after Wilhelm came to the throne? Yes, he would socialise, he would allow a few Jews at court, but it wasn’t real. It was the aristocrats, it was the military, it was the church. So the Jews still had their noses pressed against the ghetto war, and for many of them, conversion was the option. Not often religiously, by the way. And of course, many did marry non-Jews. And it has to be said, there still was a liberal Germany. But by the time we get to 1900, the forces of Teutomania, as I call it, are on the increase. But now I want to introduce you to another fascinating man, Ernest Cassel, who is the grandfather of Edwina Mountbatten, who, of course, was the… She married Louis Mountbatten, the uncle of King Charles, and she was vicereine of India when Mountbatten became Viceroy of India. So who on earth was Ernest Cassel? He was the youngest of three children. At age 14, his father ran a small bank and he was married to… He was born in Cologne, in Prussia. His mother was also the daughter of a banker. He actually was the youngest of three children. And he apprenticed under a man called Eltzbacher, who specialised in financing foreign business and industrial ventures. And early on, he understood the world of finance and he went to England. Why? He went to Liverpool, because Liverpool was the great centre of trade for the empire. And he comes to London, he works as a clerk in Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt. Now, that should tell us a lot. Bischoffsheim was… A member of that family was the wife of Bleichroder. And of course, the Goldschmidt family were a very, very prominent Anglo-Jewish family originally from Germany.

And one of their most important members, descendants was, of course, the James Goldsmith and his extraordinary three children by Annabel Birley. And of course, you will have heard of Zac Goldsmith. So basically, we’re looking at families who, the descendants, are really going to enter the highest echelons of society. By 1884, he’s putting together his own deals. He progresses brilliantly through the firm, and by the time he’s 22, he’s managing the bank. He’s putting together his own deals, and he began a close friendship with Lord Willoughby de Broke, which started a very, very strange and very good friendship with the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. He goes to Paris and worked in a bank through the Franco-Prussian war, then back to London. He puts together his own deals, and also he puts together deals in mining heavy industry. Turkey was an early interest for business deals. He’s embold in financing the railway network of the Turkish empire, along with another very entrepreneurial Jew who I’ll come on to later. He’s also involved in Morocco. He’s one of the financiers of the Aswan Dam, he was present for the opening. He consolidated Vickers-Armstrong, the leading arms manufacturer in Europe. He soon becomes one of the richest men of Europe. He’s so close to Edward, the future Edward II. He’s also a close friend of Asquith and of Churchill. He financed the first underground railway in London. He retired in 1910. He was one of England’s greatest philanthropists.

He gave £500,000 for education, £250,000 for hospital for nervous diseases, £50,000 to the King Edward Hospital in memory of his only child who died. And of course, Edwina was totally spoiled. He built and endowed an Anglo-German Institute in memory of King Edward VII in 1911. In World War I, he gave a huge donation to the British Red Cross. He had a famous art collection, he had a racing stables, he had castles all over Europe. And he was one of… He basically looked after the deaths of Edward VII. He was one of the founders of the National Bank of Turkey. He was 50% owner of the National Bank of Egypt. And Cassel was a close friend of Churchill’s father, and he looked after Churchill when his father died. This is a letter from Churchill to Edwina in 1921, “I had the knowledge that he was very fond of me and believed in me at all times, especially in bad times. I had a real and deep affection for him, saw with sadness that he was approaching the end of his mortal span. The last talk we had, about six weeks ago, he told me that he would hope to live to see me at the head of affairs. I could see how great his interest in my doings and fortunes. I did hope he would live to see a few more years of sunshine.” And when Churchill went to South Africa, Cassel gave him £100 for his kit, remember he went to fight in South Africa, which was the annual income of a middle-class family. And in 1902, he secured Churchill a 10,000 stake in a Japanese loan.

He also financed a library for Churchill in his first bachelor’s flat. He was incredibly close to him. Now, and when he married Clementine, he gave him a present of £500. So this is another German Jew. And I’m going now to another one who is completely of different end of the spectrum, because I had to include him. Can we go on, please? Here you see Max Reinhardt, because I’m trying to give you an impression. Now, Max Reinhardt was actually born in Moravia and he grew up in Vienna. He was apprenticed into a bank, but passionate about acting. He becomes an actor. He performs at the Salzburg City Theatre. He joins the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin in 1894, and he spends much of his time in Berlin. He owns… He’s an incredible entrepreneur. He perfects staging, he perfects design, music, choreography, every aspect of the German theatre. In fact, in the end, he owns 30 theatres in Berlin and in Vienna. He is, if you like, the of German theatre. So many of the great playwrights wrote for him. He was a friend of many of the characters I’ve talked about who also dabbled in the arts. He was very, very close to Walther Rathenau, who I’m going to talk about next week, who later became the German foreign minister, another Jew, of course. And he’s part of the avant-garde establishment. And of course, he also was very interested in cinema. And in 1920, along with Hofmannsthal, who was part Jewish, he founded the Salzburg Festival. And of course, one of his most famous works, Jedermann, which is still performed, every man. And later on, he goes to Hollywood and he makes the film of Midsummer Night’s Dream. What is particularly interesting about Max Reinhardt is the number of brilliant later American producers and directors who earned their craft there.

I’m talking Billy Wilder, I’m talking Fred Zinnemann, I’m talking William Dieterle, I’m talking Otto Preminger. And in the end, he makes Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935. You should watch it. It’s still available on YouTube. And of course, to finish him, when he’s already in America, he goes to America, then he goes back, then he goes to England, he finishes up in America. And in 1938, one of his Gentile friends is in Salzburg after the Anschluss and the burning of the books, and he writes to him, “Today, we burnt European culture.” And in America, in New York, he opens the Reinhardt’s School of Acting on Sunset Boulevard. But he died in 19… But he died in the war. An extraordinary individual. So let me just go on, Judy. Yes. Now, these are Impressions of Berlin. “One finds nothing in the world to compare with the department stores.” This is from an English traveller. “Those who come to Berlin believe they have stepped onto the earth of the richest city in Europe. The Kaiser believes he is God’s representative on earth.” And this is from Rosa Luxemburg, “Berlin made a ghastly impression on me. It’s a cold, tasteless, massive barrack filled with those darling arrogant Prussians.

Everyone looks as though he has swallowed the stick with which he had just been beaten.” Nothing is left of the educated idealism, which led philosophy, poetry, and even sometimes politics in Germany. Where is the old cradle of art, the co-parents of Goethe, the fatherland of Durer, Schiller, and Heine? It is no longer in Berlin.“ And I think there’s one more slide, is there not, Judy? And this is the quote of John Rohl because this will lead us into what I’m talking about next week, which is the rise, of course, of racial antisemitism, "Bismarck’s second Reich represented the most determined effort in Europe to uphold the feudal principles of personal monarchy by divine right. A military code of honour and a social hierarchy dominated by the aristocracy, and to rescue these outdated institutions and values into a world increasingly characterised by trade and industry, enormous cities, mass mobility, democracy and socialism, and freedom of expression in the press and in the arts. Nowhere was the clash between ancient and modern attitudes and beliefs more intense than in Imperial Germany.” And what I would add to that is also, in Imperial Vienna. So let me stop there. Judy, thank you very much. Let’s have a look at the questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: “Why was the life expectancy of textile workers so low?

A: Shelley.” I want you to imagine 17 hours a day. Think of all the lint that comes from the fabric working on your lungs. You know, they’re terrible conditions, which William’s going to talk about next week.

This is from Michael, “To hear about the depth of antisemitism amongst German and Eastern European Gentiles before Hitler, before the show, one can only conclude that there was a serious defect in these supposedly highly cultured and highly educated societies. What I learned of the relatively recent German court ruling with respect to the statue of Jews sucking on the tits of pigs, I have to wonder, has this defect really been repaired or is it still lurking onto the surface?” Michael, I’m really going to try and address these issues next week. But may I give you a proviso? Isaiah Berlin said this on the subject of antisemitism, “Before the war, we were sleepwalkers. Now, we are insomniacs.” Not every Gentile is our enemy. I think we must be very, very careful here. But because there is economic, social, and political unrest, the level of antisemitism is up many notches. And to quote Rabbi Sacks, “First, they hated our religion, then our race, now our nation.” And one of the problems, and I am making no comments whatsoever on the political situation in Israel. I’m not talking about that. But much of the problem is that Israel is now the main focus of Jew hatred, which is quite an uncomfortable position for us to be in at the moment. But it’s something I hope to be able to begin the dialogue on with you next week because I thought in order to progress into the 20th century… But something else I want you to think about. If you lived in Berlin in 1900, yes, you could see the rise of it, but there hadn’t been any outbreaks of attacks since 1819. You could go to the first night of the opera, you could have what jobs you wanted, or maybe you couldn’t become an officer in the army, and maybe you couldn’t go into government banking, but you could go into banking, you could go into medicine, you could go into law. And after all, it’s better than it’s been before. And I think there’s always this optimism. And also, never forget, Jews fell in love with the Enlightenment. They never really understood the demonic forces that are going to erupt beneath it. So I think there’s a lot to unpack. And please don’t forget also, Zionism was a minority movement amongst the majority of Jews in the West. These Germans were German Jews. They were German first. German was their language. It was their culture, build-on.

Q: “Doesn’t this treatment remind one of today when 500 people who die of COVID were no longer reported due to the economic impact? Will this eventually provoke a revolt?”

A: Very good point. You know, even in 1848, there wasn’t a revolution in Britain. Karl Marx was so upset. There was a chartist demonstration, but no revolution. Neil, the name of the cemetery is the Weissensee Cemetery.

Julian, it’s “We Want the Light,” the wonderful documentary on Jews, Germany, and music.

Q: “Anyone going to talk about the Counter-Reform Orthodox movement?”

A: Yes, I believe I’m going to leave that to Jeremy Rosen, Shelley. “Amazing. That’s how South African Jews developed with horse and carts selling to farmers, developing the greatest retail businesses mostly controlled by Jews.”

Yes, Allan, it’s a universal pattern of Jews in the West. It’s the same. Okay, South African mould, I mean ostrich feathers and diamonds. You fit in with the country, but so much so they go into the retail business, buying and selling, what do people want. It’s the instinct. You know, it’s the outsiderness. Look, post-Second World War, we live in a completely different world. Up until the First World War, up until the Second World War, certainly in England, the Jews were the really the only non-Christian minority of any size. Yes, there were a few other groups, but nowhere near to what’s going to happen in England after the dismemberment of the Empire and giving right of citizenship to the people from the Commonwealth. So it’s different today, and Jews are one of the smallest of the minority groups. But it’s a fascinating, Allan, it’s such a fascinating story of what the Jews go into. And I remember talking to a close friend of mine who was very big in the British retail sector, and I said, you know, “The Jews aren’t in it anymore.” He said, “No, they’re in the new retail.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Computers.”

Yes, Carol points out, “Of course, Erich Mendelsohn in Palestine, and Gordon Street is full of his designs, if I remember.” Yes, of course, those bellhouse designs how they enriched the West and Israel. Raham Hospital, Hadassah Hospital, and the Schockenhaus. Yes, of course, Schocken was another important firm. A very close friend of mine, Ralph Ehrmann, who unfortunately died a few weeks ago, his mother’s family was Schocken, and he became, I think he became chairman of Airfix. His family got out in 1932, his father, but they were international. They could. And his father was warned by Germans, “Get out.”

Q: “Were any of the descendants of Moses Mendelssohn killed by the Nazis?”

A: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Shelley. I’ll try and find out for you.

Q: “The story of Hungarian Jews similar to that of the Jews of Germany?”

A: Oh, yes, the Jews of Budapest. Not so much the Jews in the East, they were much more traditional and Yiddish speaking. Yes, yes, yes, Jews in capital cities. Look at the Jews in Prague. The story of Hungarian Jewry is extraordinary. You know of the Martians, don’t you, the scientists? They called them the Martians because they came from another planet. They were so clever.

Q: Susan, hi, Susan. “Who did you say was Consul General for San Marino?”

A: That, of course was, was it Jandorf?

My grandfather, Fritz Meton, was Austrian Consul General for San Marino from ‘27 to '38. I still have his business card.“ The government of San Marino invited me and my brother for HMD 2000 and treat us like royalty. Most amazing experience.” Oh wow, I love lockdown. How are you, Susan? She’s a great friend of mine. So yes, yes, yes, lovely.

Cassel. Thank you, Susie. If I say, until I’m blue in the face, I am so bad at pronunciation. My friend, Anita, thinks there’s something wrong with my brain. She might well be right. Yes, I did mention that some of them did, if you remember. Yeah, some of them did. So Bismarck used liberalism and modernity proper… No, Bismarck used everything in his disposal. He was an incredibly canny politician. He made one fatal mistake. By ruling through Imperial decree, he left himself open to the Kaiser Wilhelm II and he dismissed him.

“Amanda, Kathy Schindler was a very interesting book about the family who founded Kathy Schindler in its book and details of what happened to him.” Thank you, Amanda.

“Walther Rathenau: Reimar’s Fallen Statesman.” Oh, it’s been published in English. Thank you for that, Noah. “Israel is now the main focus of many, not great for antisemitism.” Yes, it has become the main target, I think, and any Jew who in any way affiliates to Israel is considered to be. Zionism has become a dirty word in certain quarters of the right and the left, for the extreme right and the extreme left, yeah. But I’m going to say this, we have weathered many storms and now we have a Jewish state. It does alter the pattern, you know?

George, yes, something like a third of German Jews converted between 1815 and 1870. And by 1920, 45% of German Jews went into marry.

This is again from Susan, “My Viennese family had a men’s wear department store in Vienna called JAWO. I’m currently researching it. I’ve discovered some wonderful art deco posters advertising in store.” They understood publicity. It’s no wonder that the advertising business was more or less a Jewish concern in Berlin and Vienna. Many of the photographic shops. So was the beauty business. Look, modernity, modernity and what people want, controlling taste, if you like, thinking ahead. Of the moguls who created Hollywood, many of them went from popular taste industries. I mean, William Fox was a glove salesman. He was hysterical. He would import. He realised that, you know, if you imported gloves from Europe, there was a tax on them. But if you imported left-hand gloves one month and right-hand gloves the second month, there was no tax. So he just employed people to pair them up.

Q: What do I know about Reifenberg and Felix Simone?

A: I would ask that question to Patrick. It’s more his field. This is the famous quote.

Oh, Edmond, this is wonderful. A very convenient remark. In fact, Professor Piemer is going to be lecturing on quite on the Western front in a couple of weeks. He’s asked, “Do you miss Germany?” Answer, I don’t miss Germany. I’m not Jewish.“ Oh, that is such a good quote, I love it.

"When Cecil Rhodes visited Bulawayo with his partner Alfred Beit, a German Jewish financier, he saw a building going up and asked what it was, Beit told him it was a synagogue. But Rhodes responded and said, "If Jews come to Rhodesia, it will be a successful country,” which it became. That’s interesting, Barry.

“Josie Adler, the story of Emil Rathenau and the growth of AEG, the world’s first public-private project to electrify Berlin is well worth reading.” I’m going to be talking about that the week after next because, obviously read the books. But to actually look at the entwined lives of Einstein, Rathenau, and Haber because they were all close to each other, one way or the other. They’re fascinating individuals.

This is Monica, “My father’s friend in Vienna owns several strip clubs after the war in Leopoldstadt.” Oh yes, I’m sure, yeah. There’s the other side of the world as well. It’s popular taste, remember?

Sherry says, “The situation in Israel should be of concern toward Jews who care about Israel. We cannot remain silent.” Sherry, let me say very, very carefully, I am not a politician. What I’m saying is, when I was talking about Israel, I was talking about antisemitism. I don’t really think this play… My subject is not a subject in which to get involved. We all do what we think we should do personally, and I think that would be my comment on that.

Q: “Is there a biography of Reuter?”

A: Yes, there is, and I can’t remember the name. I will think of it for you for next week.

Anyway, Judy, we have another lecture at 7:00. Thank you so much all of you and I will see you next week. God bless, everyone.