Fritz Stern - Gold and Iron: Bismark, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, September 1979

Copyright 1977 by Fritz Stern

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in February 1977.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Stern, Fritz Richard, 1926
Gold and iron.

Reprint of the 1977 ed. published by Knopf, New York.
Bibliography: p.
1. Bismarck, Otto, Frst von, 18151898.
2. Bleichrder, Gerson von, 18221893.
3. StatesmenGermanyBiography.
4. BankersGermanyBiography. I. Title.
[DD218.2.S85 1979] 943.080922
[B] 79-11462
eISBN: 978-0-307-82986-3

v3.1

To Peggy

Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.

Heinrich Heine

The history of the House of Rothschild is of greater importance for world history than the domestic history of the state of Saxony; and is it a matter of indifference that that is the history of a German Jew?

Theodor Mommsen

The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisionsthat was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849but by blood and iron.

Otto von Bismarck in 1862

The German Empire has been built more truly on coal and iron than on blood and iron.

John Maynard Keynes

Baron James de Rothschild (Collection Viollet)

Gerson von Bleichrder, from a painting by Emile Wanters (Deutsche Staatsbibliothek)

Otto von Bismarck, 1864 (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz)

William I, as German Emperor (Hulton Picture Library)

William I, King of Prussia, with Bismarck and Moltke, 1866 ( BPK )

Punch cartoon, 1867 ( BPK )

Ferrires, chteau of Baron James de Rothschild (Fritz Stern)

The Bleichrder bank, Berlin (Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder)

Gerson von Bleichrder in the 1850s (Ullstein Bilderdienst)

Adolph von Hansemann ( BPK )

Count Henckel von Donnersmarck ( BPK )

The great hall of the Bleichrder bank (Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder)

Field Marshal von Moltke ( BPK )

Bismarck and aides at Versailles, 1871 ( BPK )

Bismarck with Jules Favre and Adolphe Thiers ( BPK )

From a contemporary French cartoon: Bismarck and William I, and the pillage of Alsace-Lorraine (Collection Viollet)

French caricature of Favre and Thiers, 1871 (Collection Viollet)

Cartoon ridiculing the anti-Jewish polemics of the Prussian Kreuzzeitung, c. 1875 (Akademie der Knste, Berlin)

Drawing by E. Thiel of the Berlin stock exchange, 1889 (Illustrierte Zeitung)

Johanna von Bismarck ( BPK )

Herbert von Bismarck ( BPK )

Bismarck and William II at Friedrichsruh, 1888 ( BPK )

Bismarck with his family and friends at Friedrichsruh, 1893 ( BPK )

Benjamin Disraeli (Mansell Collection)

Sir Moses Montefiore, from a painting by George Richmond (Hulton Picture Library)

Congress of Berlin, 1878 (Hulton Picture Library)

Cartoon commenting on Bismarcks anti-Socialist law, 1878 ( BPK )

Punch cartoon of Bismarck and Disraeli, 1878 (Mansell Collection)

Heinrich von Lehndorff ( BPK )

Paul von Hatzfeldt ( BPK )

Friedrich von Holstein ( BPK )

Josef Maria von Radowitz ( BPK )

Gerson von Bleichrder on his deathbed, 1893 (Baker Library, Harvard University)

Paul von Schwabach (Ullstein Bilderdienst)

Georg von Bleichrder (Ullstein Bilderdienst)

Hans von Bleichrder, Jr., 1927 (Ullstein Bilderdienst)

One of Bismarcks last letters to Bleichrder (Baker Library, Harvard University)

Ministry of Interior memorandum to Adolf Eichmann on Edgar and Curt von Bleichrder (Bundesarchiv)

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