Author Description

Traces the history of the complex relationship between Bismarck and his banker, Gerson von Bleichröder, viewed as a symbolic encounter between German conservative political power and capital. Surveys German society in the 19th century, pointing out the persistence of latent anti-Jewish prejudices, especially in aristocratic circles. Ch. 14 (pp. 351-393), "Rumania: The Triumph of Expediency", relates Bleichröder's efforts on behalf of Romanian Jewry between 1867-80, and his intervention with Bismarck to try to force the Romanian government to grant emancipation to the Jews. Remarks on Bismarck's pragmatic and opportunistic approach to the "Jewish question". Ch. 17 (pp. 461-493), "The Jew as Patriotic Parvenu", and ch. 18 (pp. 494-531), "The Hostage of the New Anti-Semitism", discuss the social status of German Jews on the eve of the emergence of political antisemitism in the 1880s, and the impact of the antisemitic discourse of persons such as Stöcker and Treitschke. Bleichröder became a major target of antisemitic propaganda, a symbol of Jewish financial domination and the "Jewish international plot".