The Equivocalities of Emancipation and the Jewish State Banker

• At the height of the nineteenth century, the nation-state granted Jews equality of rights, despite the contradiction that nationality was a prerequisite for citizenship and population homogeneity.

• The emancipation edicts, starting with the French edict of 1792, came with an equivocal attitude toward Jews by the nation-state.

• The feudal order’s breakdown led to the revolutionary concept of equality, disallowing a “nation within a nation,” thus abolishing Jewish restrictions and privileges alongside others.

• This growth of equality depended on an independent state machine functioning above all classes and parties, needing state credit and business expansion.

• Jews, with their historical role as moneylenders and connections to European nobility, were naturally called upon to support state credit and business, which led to the granting of certain privileges treating Jews as a separate group.

• The state could not afford Jews to be fully assimilated because the rest of the population was reluctant to support state business or grant credit.

• Jewish emancipation had a double origin and equivocal meaning: political/legal equality and gradual extension of specific Jewish privileges from individuals to the entire Jewish community.

• Emancipation meant equality and privileges simultaneously, destruction of old Jewish community autonomy, preservation as a separate social group, abolition of special restrictions and extension of rights to a growing number of individuals.

• The new body politic was premised on equality of condition, which was realized mainly by depriving old ruling classes of privileges and oppressed classes of protections.

• However, this coincided with the birth of class society, separating nationals economically and socially as much as the old regime had.

• True equality as understood by the Jacobins only occurred in America; in Europe, it became formal equality before the law.

• The contradiction between political equality and class inequality prevented the development of functioning republics and new political hierarchies.

• Class membership was mostly inherited by birth and existed alongside political equality; feudal remnants persisted mainly in politically backward countries like Germany.

• Jews were exceptions: they did not form a class, nor belong to any existing classes like workers, middle-class, landholders, or peasants.

• Although often wealthy, Jews did not share in capitalist development or industrial enterprise; their employers were mostly white-collar personnel, not workers.

• Their status was defined by being Jews, not by class relationships.

• Jews received special state protection through privileges or emancipation edicts, often needing reinforcement against societal hostility.

• Their special services to governments prevented both their absorption into the class system and the formation of a Jewish class.

• When admitted to society, Jews became a well-defined, self-preserving group within existing classes like the aristocracy or bourgeoisie.

• The nation-state’s interest in preserving Jews as a special group aligned with Jewish interests in self-preservation and group survival.

• Without this coincidence of interests, government efforts would likely have failed.

• The trends from the state pushing for equalization and society pushing for class incorporation, both implying Jewish assimilation, were frustrated by government intervention combined with voluntary Jewish cooperation.

• Official policies toward Jews were not always consistent or unwavering, despite final appearances.

• Surprisingly, Jews often neglected opportunities for normal capitalist enterprise and business.

• Without government interests and practices, Jews could hardly have preserved their group identity.

• Jews were uniquely defined and positioned by the body politic, lacking a distinct social reality, placing them socially in a void.

• Their social inequality differed from class inequality and stemmed mainly from their relationship to the state—being either overprivileged under government protection or underprivileged with restricted rights to prevent assimilation.

• The rise and decline of the European nation-state system and European Jewry occurred in stages:

  1. In the 17th and 18th centuries, nation-states developed under absolute monarchs; individual Jews rose as court Jews, financing state affairs and managing princes’ finances, but masses lived mostly under feudal conditions.

  2. After the French Revolution, modern nation-states required much larger capital and credit than court Jews provided; wealthy strata of Western and Central European Jewry pooled resources via prominent Jewish bankers to meet state needs.

  • This period extended privileges from court Jews to a larger wealthy Jewish class in urban financial centers.

  • Emancipation was granted in most full-fledged nation-states, withheld only where Jews lacked organization or economic function in state finance.

  3. At the end of the 19th century, imperialism rose, requiring active political intervention for capitalist expansion, undermining the nation-state’s foundations.

  • Jews lost their exclusive position in state business to imperialist businessmen, diminishing their group importance though some individuals remained influential financial advisers.

  • These newer Jewish financiers often cut ties with Jewish communities, which were no longer financially organized.

  4. Preceding World War I, Western Jewry disintegrated with the nation-state, losing power and becoming atomized wealthy individuals.

  • In the imperialist age, Jewish wealth became insignificant and the non-national, inter-European Jewish element became a target of universal hatred and contempt.

• Absolute monarchies first needed regular income and secure finances, transitioning from temporary war looting and tax monopolies to establishing state credit systems.

• Absolute monarchies sought a reliable social class for support, leading to struggles with guilds and the rise of mercantilism, attempting state monopoly over business and industry, which ultimately failed due to bourgeois resistance.

• Before emancipation edicts, every princely household had a court Jew for financial affairs, who were influential individuals with inter-European connections but no international financial entity existed.

• During the 17th and 18th centuries, privileged status of court Jews was openly acknowledged and linked directly to services rendered to the state.

• Privileged Jews often received noble titles in France, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia, visibly marking their status beyond wealth.

• The Rothschilds’ difficulty in obtaining a noble title in Austria (finally approved in 1817) symbolized the end of this privileged period.

• By the late 18th century, none of the estates or classes was willing or able to become a new ruling class by identifying with the government as the nobility had.

• The failure of absolute monarchy to find a social substitute led to the full development of the nation-state, claiming to be above all classes, independent of society, and the sole representative of the nation.

• This deepened the split between state and society, the foundation of the nation’s body politic.

• Without this split, there would have been no opportunity to integrate Jews into European history on equal terms.

• When the state failed to ally with major social classes, it established itself as a tremendous business concern mainly for administrative purposes, creating a special sphere of state business from the eighteenth century onward.

• The growth of state business conflicted with the bourgeoisie, who preferred private investment and avoided state financial involvement, seeing state business as “unproductive.”

• Jews were the only group willing to finance the state’s beginnings, using their credit and international connections to help the nation-state grow into a major enterprise and employer.

• The price and reward for Jewish services to the state were great privileges, especially equality under the law.

• Examples include the Münchener Juden of Frederick of Prussia and court Jews of the Austrian Emperor receiving general privileges and patents equating to emancipation and equal rights later granted to all Jews.

• Wealthy Jews in Berlin at the end of the eighteenth century resisted equality for poorer Eastern Jews, showing they sought privileges and special liberties, not universal equal rights.

• Privileged Jews, closely linked to government business, viewed their freedom as a price for services rendered, not as an inherent right for all Jews.

• Only at the end of the nineteenth century, with imperialism, did the owning classes change their view of state business from unproductive to valuable.

• Imperialism and the state’s monopoly on violence made the state a profitable business, causing Jews to lose their exclusive position gradually.

• By the mid-nineteenth century, some states no longer needed Jewish financing as nationals increasingly financed government loans and bonds became widely accessible and secure investments.

• Jews maintained prominence only because they had another key role: as an inter-European element without their own territory or government, their international financial status was essential in times of national conflicts and wars.

• The rise of Jews to political and economic significance was sudden and unexpected, following a period in the late Middle Ages when Jewish moneylenders lost importance and were expelled from cities to rural areas.

• The seventeenth century Thirty Years’ War was a turning point, where dispersed Jewish moneylenders supplied mercenary armies, increasing the number of court Jews serving feudal lords.

• As court Jews served feudal lords, their property and money dealings were private affairs of their masters, not political issues, so Jews remained politically insignificant then.

• When feudal lords became centralized princes or kings, court Jews’ roles shifted but they still saw their loyalty as personal honesty, not political allegiance.

• This aristocratic relationship was the only significant tie Jews had to a social class; it disappeared in the early nineteenth century and was never replaced.

• The only remnants were Jewish aspirations for aristocratic titles and non-Jewish liberal antisemitism that linked Jews with nobility as a supposed financial alliance against the bourgeoisie.

• This argument had some plausibility before general Jewish emancipation, as court Jews had privileges resembling noble rights, and some wealthy Jews modeled themselves on the aristocracy.

• However, this was of little consequence as the nobility declined and Jews gained status; meanwhile, the aristocracy itself developed antisemitic ideology first, especially in Prussia.

• Jews were purveyors and servants to kings in wars but not expected to engage in conflicts themselves.

• In national wars, Jews remained an international element, valued for not being tied to any national cause.

• Jews ceased to be primary state bankers and war financiers after the 1866 Prussian-Austrian war (Bleichroeder’s last war financing role).

• Instead, Jews became financial advisers in peace treaties and informal providers of political news.

• The last peace treaties without Jewish involvement were at the Congress of Vienna (1815); by 1871, Jews played more significant roles in peace negotiations (e.g., Bleichroeder aiding Bismarck).

• Jewish financial and news connections helped political figures, such as Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli, through indirect channels.

• The Versailles peace treaties were the last major agreements where Jews had prominent advisory roles.

• Walter Rathenau, foreign minister of the Weimar Republic, was the last Jew to owe his national prominence to international Jewish connections; he was assassinated partly due to this link.

• Antisemitic governments did not use Jews for the business of war and peace, reflecting a deeper significance beyond mere antisemitism.

• Jews were valuable only as a non-national element when war aimed for peace and compromise; once war aimed at total annihilation, Jews lost usefulness.

• The policy of “victory or death” meant the destruction of Jewish collective existence, not necessarily physical extermination but political and social extinction.

• The argument that Jews would have joined Nazism like other Germans is only partially true psychologically but false historically.

• Nazism without antisemitism would still have meant the end of the Jewish people in Europe; consenting to Nazism was collective suicide for Jews as a people.

• Two major contradictions shaped Jewish destiny:

  1. The contradiction between equality and privilege (equality given as privilege).

  2. Jews as the only non-national European people threatened by the collapse of nation-states.

• Nation representatives (Jacobins, Metternich, Bismarck) were all concerned with balance of power in Europe, seeking advantage but not total domination or annihilation.

• Jews symbolized the common interest of European nations due to their non-national role.

• The catastrophe of European peoples began with the catastrophe of the Jewish people, their elimination marking the start of European disintegration.

• The elimination of Jews was more than nationalism or prejudice; it marked the breakdown of European and Jewish solidarity.

• When German Jewish persecution began, other European Jews saw German Jews as an exception and distanced themselves.

• German Jewry was fractured into factions, each hoping to protect rights through special privileges like WWI veteran status.

• The annihilation of Jews seemed preceded by a bloodless self-destruction and fragmentation of Jewish identity.

• Jews entered European history as a purely European, inter-European, non-national element in a world of nation-states.

• Their role as a non-national element lasted longer and was more essential than their function as state bankers.

• Their downfall coincided with the ruin of the European nation-state system, which had tolerated this element.

• Few European thinkers recognized this unique Jewish role:

  • Diderot saw Jews as a useful link between European nationalities.

  • Wilhelm von Humboldt noted Jews would lose universality by becoming Frenchmen after emancipation.

  • Friedrich Nietzsche coined “good European” to appreciate Jewish role beyond philosemitism or patronizing attitudes.

• Jews lacked a political tradition or experience, were unaware of the tension between society and state, and believed high authority favored them while common people were dangerous.

• This prejudice reflected historical reality but no longer fit new circumstances and was shared unconsciously by most Jews.

• Jewish bankers quickly shifted allegiance after political upheavals (e.g., Rothschilds in 1848 France, Warburgs and Rathenau post-1918 Germany).

• This behavior was more than bourgeois pragmatism; Jews lacked knowledge or interest in power and sought only mild pressure for self-defense.

• The lack of Jewish ambition for power caused resentment among more assimilated Jewish elites.

• Some, like Disraeli, fantasized about secret Jewish power societies that never existed.

• Others, like Walter Rathenau, expressed half-antisemitic criticism of wealthy Jewish traders who lacked real power or social status.

• The innocence of Jews in political power matters was misunderstood by non-Jewish statesmen and historians.

• Jewish representatives rarely mentioned their detachment from power, often expressing surprise at the absurd suspicions against them.

• Many 19th-century statesmen believed that Rothschild family bankers controlled or prevented wars, a belief rooted in naive assumptions.

• Historian J. A. Hobson (1905) claimed no war or major loan could happen without the Rothschilds’ approval, which was a misjudgment.

• Figures like Metternich overestimated the political role of the Rothschilds, wrongly predicting their downfall would coincide with his own.

• In reality, the Rothschilds lacked political intentions or aims to provoke war; they allied with authority in general, not specific governments.

• They preferred monarchies over republics because republics depended more on popular will, which Jews instinctively mistrusted.

• During the late Weimar Republic, Jews tried political involvement by founding the “State-party” (Staatspartei) but failed to grasp the party-state relationship.

• This naïve belief in the party being the state itself led to suspicion and misunderstanding by others.

• Jews ignored the growing tension between state and society and were slow to realize they were at the center of rising antisemitism.

• For over a century, antisemitism spread gradually across European social strata and eventually unified public opinion.

• The process followed a law: classes in conflict with the state became antisemitic because Jews were seen as the state’s representatives.

• The working class was mostly immune to antisemitism due to focus on class struggle, not the state, and because Jews were not part of the bourgeoisie.

• The political emancipation of Jews around the 18th century changed their attitude toward the state, symbolized by the rise of the Rothschild family.

• The Rothschilds shifted from serving individual princes to internationally serving multiple governments simultaneously across Europe.

• This strategy was partly a reaction to emancipation threatening to nationalize Jewish communities and destroy their international advantages.

• Meyer Amschel Rothschild established his five sons in Frankfurt, Paris, London, Naples, and Vienna to maintain this international position.

• The Rothschilds began as court Jews serving the Kurfürst of Hessen, benefiting from Frankfurt’s unique Jewish population and imperial authority.

• They amassed wealth and fame by handling large state loans, notably funding English subventions during the Napoleonic Wars (1811-1816).

• For three generations, they monopolized government loans across Europe, earning the title “chief treasurer of the Holy Alliance.”

• Their rise replaced accidental individual wealth with a systematic Jewish group directing state finance and Jewish capital internationally.

• The Rothschild monopoly created a basis for inter-European Jewish cohesiveness and centralized control of financial opportunities.

• This monopoly partially replaced old religious and spiritual Jewish bonds, which were loosening due to Western cultural influence.

• To outsiders, the Rothschild family symbolized Jewish internationalism in a world of nation-states, fueling ideas of a Jewish world government.

• The idea of Jews being bound by blood and family ties was strengthened by the Rothschilds’ prominence and the Jewish emphasis on family survival.

• Jewish family ties became a last fortress against assimilation, similar to declining European nobility’s marriage laws.

• Western Jews became increasingly family-conscious, viewing their group as a large family due to spiritual dissolution and alien environments.

• This internal family solidarity partially confirmed antisemitic images of Jews as a closely-knit, international family.

• This perception contributed to the growth of antisemitism in the 19th century.

• Groups turning antisemitic did so based on general conflict with the state, where Jews appeared as the state’s representatives.

• Antisemitic propaganda portrayed Jews as an international trade organization, a secret force behind governments, manipulating political power.

• Jews were seen as closely linked to state power but aloof from wider society, fueling suspicions they sought to destroy social structures.