JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

anking and bankers
Bleichroeder in 1893 his partner Paul Schwabach continued
the business. The brothers Moses, Marcus, and Gerson *Warburg
founded a bank in Hamburg in 1798. Its main business
was concerned with the Hamburg overseas trade, especially
transactions with England and the United States. Paul M.
*Warburg, a brother of Max M. *Warburg, head of the Hamburg
bank before World War I, established a branch office in
New York. Toward the end of the 18th century J.M. *Speyer,
through his bank’s provisioning of armies and exchange business,
had a capital of 420,000 florins, the largest Jewish fortune
in Frankfurt at that time. In 1809 G.J. Elissen opened a
banking house which took the name of J.L. Speyer-Elissen in
1818 and Lazard Speyer-Elissen in 1838. Philipp Speyer and
Co., the U.S. branch, negotiated the American credit during
the Civil War, participated in the development of the railroads
in America, and conducted transactions in Mexico and
Cuba, partly in association with the Deutsche Bank. In 1928
Speyer amalgamated with C. Schlesinger, Trier, and Company
to form Lazard Speyer-Elissen K.a.A., Frankfurt and Berlin.
The bank established by Solomon *Oppenheim in Bonn in
1789 acquired a leading position; at the beginning of the 19th
century Solomon moved to Cologne, where his son Abraham
became one of the most influential bankers in the Rhineland,
financing insurance associations, railroad construction, and
industrial investment.
Jewish bankers played an important part in the development
of joint stock banks. Ludwig *Bamberger and Hermann
Markuse were among the founders of the Deutsche
Bank (1870), which was active in financing German foreign
trade. The Disconto-Gesellschaft, established by David Hansemann
in 1851, which amalgamated with the Deutsche Bank
in 1929, had several Jewish partners. Eugen *Gutmann was the
main founder of the Dresdner Bank, and Abraham Oppenheim
was one of the founders of the Bank fuer Handel und
Industrie (Darmstaedter Bank; 1853). The leading personality
in the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft (established in 1856) was
Carl *Fuerstenberg. Richard Witting, brother of Maximilian
Harden, was one of the directors of the Nationalbank fuer
Deutschland; when it merged with the Darmstaedter Bank
in 1921, Jacob *Goldschmidt, then director of the latter, took
control of the new enterprise. In 1932 the two other most important
banks in Germany, the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdener
Bank, were directed by Oskar *Wassermann and Herbert
Gutman respectively.
In England, banks were established by Sir David *Salomons
(London and Westminster Bank, 1832), the Stern brothers
(1833), Samuel *Montagu (1853), Emile Erlanger (1859), the
Speyer brothers, *Seligman brothers, and S. Japhet and Co.,
many of them immigrants from Frankfurt; the Speyer bank
negotiated loans on behalf of Greece, Bulgaria, and Hungary,
as well as for Latin American states. David *Sassoon and Company,
established in Bombay in 1832, had branches throughout
the Orient, handling extensive transactions. Sir Ernest *Cassel,
partly in association with Sir Carl Meyer, established banks
in Egypt and Turkey. Industrial banks were organized by Sir
Moses *Montefiore and the Anglo-American Corporation,
which was connected with the diamond and finance corporation
of A. Dunkelsbueler, established by Sir Ernest *Oppenheimer.
In South Africa the General Mining and Finance Corporation
was set up by Hamilton Ehrlich and Turk, and one
of the most important enterprises in South African financing
was the Barnato brothers’ company.
In France Achille *Fould, a competitor of the Rothschilds,
was a supporter of Napoleon III and later his finance
minister. Together with his brother Benoit he inherited the
Paris firm of Fould, Oppenheimer et Cie., which had been
established by his father. Meanwhile the brothers Emile and
Isaac *Péreire, who moved to Paris from Marseilles in 1822,
financed railway construction in France and Spain. Through
the Crédit Mobilier, organized in 1852, they mobilized credit
for various investment projects, but ran into difficulties in 1867.
Among the other important Jewish banks was the Banque de
Paris et des Pays-Bas (1872), with Henri Bamberger as one of
the directors. The leading position among the private banks
was held by Rothschild; from 1889 to 1901 all loans to Russia
from Paris were issued through the Rothschild bank. Baron
Maurice de *Hirsch from Munich, son-in-law of the Brussels
banker Raphael Jonathan *Bischoffsheim, invested successfully
in railroad construction. Other Jewish banks were
those of Louis Dreyfus and Lazard Frères. In Italy, where Luigi
*Luzzatti’s agricultural associations were largely philanthropic,
Jewish bankers played a leading part in the foundation of the
Banca Commerciale Italiana and the Credito Italiano. The
Rothschilds, Sterns, and Goldsmids also invested money in
Spain and Portugal.
RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE. A number of Jewish banks
were established in Vienna during the 19th century, the most
influential of which was Arnstein and Eskeles. This bank
however was declared bankrupt in 1859. Weikersheim and
Company and from 1821 Salomon Rothschild also established
banks in Vienna. Jews participated in the foundation of the
Niederoesterreichische Eskomptgessellschaft (1853) and the
Kreditanstalt (1855), which made an essential contribution to
the development of the Vienna stock exchange and extended
international loan facilities, also investing in industry and
railroads. Leading private banks in Hungary were of Jewish
origin, such as the Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank (Hungarian
General Credit Bank; established in 1867) with Siegmund
Kornfeld as a general director, the Pester Ungarische
Kommerzial-bank (Hungarian Commercial Bank at Pest), established
in 1841 by Moritz Ullmann, and the Ungarische Hypotheken-bank
(Hungarian Hypothecary Credit Bank; 1869)
with Nándor (Ferdinand) Beck de Madarassy as its general
director. In Prague the *Petschek family established a bank in
1920; in Galicia, under the Austrian regime, Brody (Nathanson,
Kallir) and Lemberg had Jewish banks. Between the end
of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th Jewish banks
of some importance rose in Russia. In St. Petersburg Nicolai
and Ludwig *Stieglitz, immigrants from Germany, opened a
116 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3