A Coin Trade Connected to World War II
In the 1760s a young bank clerk named Mayer Amschel Bauer was busying climbing the rungs within the Oppenheimer's Bank of Hannover, Germany. He made the acquaintance of Lieutenant-General baron von Estorff who was attached to the court of Prince William IX of Hesse-Hanau, one of the richest royal houses in Europe. The young Bauer began selling coins to the general at very generous prices and they would be come friends. This friendship lead to an introduction to the Prince and a long banking relationship between the wealthy prince and ambitious and growingly wealthy banker. In 1769 the Prince granted Bauer the permission to use coat of arms with a red shield. Bauer's family name would forever become this red shield; Rothschild.
Amschel Rothschild would marry the following year and produce 10 children. He cemented his relationship with the Prince and became the Prince's chief lender and money manager. In the late 18th century Rothschild would expand his banking business by setting up his five sons in the five most important cities in Europe, where they each would take active roles in the financing of Europe's growth and it's wars. It was the latter that would bring the family its notoriety. Because they established banking throughout Europe they were often financing both sides of a war. In 1870 the French reparation payment for the loss to Bismarck's Germany was financed by the Paris branch while the German victors were financed by the German branch of the same family bank. This seeming conflict did not manifest itself much during the 19th century as Europe spent most of the century in relative peace. The Rothschild's had financed the British war effort against Napoleon and against the Russians in the Russo-Crimean war but only the 1970 Franco-Prussian war put them openly on both sides.
This would change with the Great War in 1914-1918 that pitted all of Europe against each other. Of course, with banking throughout Europe it was natural that family banking empire would be on all sides. Consequently, whichever side lost would blame the financiers for causing the war for its own profit. In this case it was Germany and when the post-war economy collapsed the seeds of resentment percolated through the society. When the young Adolf Hitler would begin making his case for the "stabbed in the back by Jewish bankers" claims, it was the Rothschild family he was directly referring to. Coupled with a few other prominent German Jews that had vocally opposed the war, Hitler's case against the Jews found welcome ears among the discontented Germans. Hitler could point to the wealth and ostentatious lifestyle of the jewish bankers as the true enemies of Germany. By conquering Europe he could put an end to these traitors to Germany. He came very close to succeeding.
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