“Give a man a gun, he will rob a bank…Give a man a bank, he will rob everyone.”
I’m working on an episode of a financial crime, history of unethical moments in finance podcast. The episode is basically a history of the Rothschild family and I just want to include as much cool & terrifying information as possible. Below is the script I have for the episode. I’ve learned that it’s rather… difficult to tell an accurate story on this family. They are definitely secretive, and what blows my mind is that even the well confirmed facts about the Rothschilds are enough to give you goosebumps. Please let me know if you have anything that you think is noteworthy to add and thank you in advance.
Few names are as synonymous with banking as the Rothschild family. Shrouded in mystery, how did the elusive family rise to power, and where are they today? Welcome to the third episode of The Dark Side of Money.
In 1744 Mayer Amschel Rothschild was born in Frankfurt Germany, the son of a currency exchanger who supplied coins to the Prince of Hesse. Mayer is widely considered the “founding father of international finance” and Forbes ranked him 7th in the “Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of All Time” list. Growing up in poverty, Rothschild eventually secured an apprenticeship at the banking firm Simon Wolf Oppenheimer and learned useful knowledge in foreign trade and currency exchanging. He eventually became a dealer in antiques and rare coins, eventually winning the patronage of Prince of Hesse, now Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, who earlier patronaged his father.
Rothschild expanded banking services to the crown prince in 1769, becoming the court factor, or court banker; since only Jewish people could lend with interest, as the practice of usury was forbidden in Christianity. He began financing wars, lending money to England to hire Hessian mercenaries which were used by England in the American Revolution. During the 1770s he financed Adam Weishaupt, the man credited with starting the Order of the Illuminati. In 1790 he uttered his famous phrase “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws”. The next year, Alexander Hamilton, Rothschilds chief US supporter, created the First Bank of the United States, of which Rothschild and many other English investors had a stake in.
Around this time he began sending his sons to the financial centers of Europe. The eldest, Amschel, was placed in charge of the Frankfurt bank. The second son, Salomon, was sent to Vienna, where he soon took over the banking monopoly formerly shared among five Jewish families. The third son, Nathan, founded the London branch, and became one of the wealthiest men ever, and the richest among the Rothschilds. Karl, the fourth son, went to Naples, and worked extensively in finance with the Medici family. The youngest son, James, founded the French branch in Paris.
While I recommend you study all 5 of Mayer’s sons, as they all have remarkable stories, let’s focus on Nathan Mayer Rothschild, his third son who moved to London. In 1798 at the age of 21 Nathan moved the Manchester and established a business in textile trading and finance, later moving to London and making a fortune trading in bills of exchange in 1805. The next year he married Hannah Barent-Cohen, the daughter of a wealthy diamond dealer, and grand-aunt of Karl Marx. In 1806 Napoleon invaded Hesse, causing Wilhelm to become exiled, but Mayer Rothschild was able to continue as his banker, investing funds in London through Nathan. The family also profited from importing goods, circumventing Napoleon’s continental blockade. In 1809 Nathan began to deal in gold bullion, making it a cornerstone of his business. Around this time Nathan began lending money to pay for British troops fighting against Napoleon. In 1811 he set up N. M. Rothschild and Sons in London, which still trades today, and perfected the art of lending to governments during wartime, and having the winner cover the loser’s debt. Nathan almost single-handedly financed the British War effort, while Jacob would fund Napoleon, both sharing information through their system of agents, couriers, and spies.
Also in 1811 the First Bank of The United States charter expired, and was not renewed due to suspicion over its foreign influence. James Madison, president at the time said “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible, to maintain their control over governments, by controlling money and its issuance.”
Since the Rothschilds had a significant stake in the bank, and this was a profitable monopolistic venture, Nathan issued the threat “Either the application for the renewal of the charter is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war”. British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was against the war, but was unexpectedly assassinated and replaced by Robert Banks Jenkinson, who was for it. Thus beginning the War of 1812, which Nathan of course financed, declaring “Teach these impudent Americans a lesson. Bring them back to colonial status.” In the same year, Moses Taylor, an associate of the Rothschild family, formed the National City Bank of New York in 1812, which later became Citibank. Financing the war caused a doubling of US debt, and in so desperate need of funds, formed a new central bank in 1816, which was once again dominated by foreign investors, including the Rothschilds. Mayer Amschel Rothschild died in 1812, leaving one billion francs to his 5 sons.
There is a famous story related to Nathan, and that is his famous multi-million dollar trade after the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Essentially, his spies informed him that the British defeated Napoleon before the British government knew. Once he got word of it, he began selling his bonds on the exchange. People suspected this meant Rothschild knew that the British lost, and began a massive sell-off of people scrambling to lock in gains. Once prices reached their lowest, he began buying everything he could get his hands on, right around when news was received that the british actually won the battle of Waterloo. This caused prices on the stock market to skyrocket, making Nathan a tidy multi-million pound profit off the trade. Not bad, for a days work. The French, needing massive amounts of loans to rebuild after the war, was financed by the Rothschilds. They bought vast amounts of government bonds, causing the prices to increase. In early November 1818 they dumped them on the open market, causing France to go into a financial panic. The Rothschilds then stepped in and took control of the money supply.
In 1822 the emperor of Austria made the five Rothschild brothers Barons, but Nathan chose not to take up the title. This earned them the ability to add “de” or “Von” to their surname.
Nathan began issuing bonds to the british government, attaining such a position of power that in 1825 he was able to supply enough coins to avoid a liquidity crisis in the Bank of England. In the same year he also brokered the independence of Brazil from Portugal, on the condition that Brazil should take over the 1.5 million pound loan made to the Portuguese government by N M Rothschild & Sons. He then founded the Alliance Assurance Company, which is now Royal & SunAlliance. In 1830 he helped finance the country of Belgium, which just gained independence and was looking for investors. In 1835 he purchased the rights to Almaden mines in southern Spain, effectively gaining a world monopoly on mercury, a vital component of gold and silver refining. Nathan also become known for his role in the abolition of the slave trade, by financing a 20 million pound buyout of the plantation industry’s slaves. By the time of his death in 1836, his personal net worth was amounted to .62% of British national income.
A description of Nathan at the London Stock Exchange was quoted “He leaned against the ‘Rothschild Pillar’ … hung his heavy hands into his pockets, and began to release silent, motionless, implacable cunning” “Eyes are usually called the windows of the soul. But in Rothschild’s case you would conclude that the windows are false ones, or that there was no soul to look out of them. There comes not one pencil of light from the interior, neither is there one gleam of that which comes from without reflected in any direction. The whole puts you in mind of an empty skin, and you wonder why it stands upright without at least something in it. By and by another figure comes up to it. It then steps two paces aside, and the most inquisitive glance that you ever saw, and more inquisitive than you would ever have thought of, is drawn out of those fixed and leaden eyes, as if one were drawing a sword from a scabbard. The visiting figure, which has the appearance of coming by accident and not by design, stops just a second or two, in the course of which looks are exchanged which, though you cannot translate, you feel must be of most important meaning. After this, the eyes are sheathed up again, and the figure resumes its stony posture. During the morning, numbers of visitors come, all of whom meet with a similar reception and vanish in a similar manner. Last of all the figure itself vanishes, leaving you utterly at a loss.”
On Sep 10, 1833 Andrew Jackson announced the government would no longer use the Second Bank of the United States, declaring “You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, I will rout you out!” An assassination attempt was made on Jackson, to which he later claimed he knew it was the Rothschilds. When asked on his deathbed what was his greatest accomplishment, he said “I killed the bank”. The United States would go 80 years without a central bank in what was called the wildcat banking era.
In 1840 the Rothschilds become the Bank of England’s bullion brokers. They set up agencies in California, and shortly after the California gold rush began. President John Tyler repeatedly vetoed the act to renew the charter for the Bank of the United States, and received hundreds of letters threatening him with assassination.
In 1845 James and Salomon Rothschild built the first major railway line from Paris to Austria. In 1847 Nathan’s son Lionel was elected to the parliamentary seat for the City of London, the first Jewish person to do so. In 1852 N M Rothschilds & Sons began refining gold and silver for the Royal Mint and the Bank of England, and other international customers.
In response the American civil war, Otto Von Bismarck said “The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed… Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union.”
In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln approached the Rothschilds to try to obtain loans to support the ongoing American civil war. The Rothschilds were already financing the south through various agents. They agreed on the condition that Lincoln will charter another US central bank, and would pay 24 to 36% interest on all monies loaned. Lincoln, furious about the high level of interest, decided to print his own debt free money and informed the public this was legal tender for public and private debt, calling them “greenbacks”. By that time next year $449 million greenbacks were printed. Lincoln stated “We gave the people of this republic the greatest blessing they ever had, their own paper money to pay their own debts.”
The Rothschilds published the following story in the london times: “If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
In 1863 the Rothschilds helped finance John D. Rockefeller to form an oil business called Standard Oil. In 1864 Lincoln discovers that the Tsar of Russia, Alexander II, was having problems with the Rothschilds because he was refusing their continual attempts to set up a central bank in Russia. Lincoln asked the Tsar for help, who agreed and anchored his fleet in New York and California, making it clear that if any other country interfered, Russia would side with Lincoln. In a statement to Congress Lincoln said “I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me, and the financial institution in the rear. Of the two, the one in my rear is my greatest foe.”, later that year Lincoln was assassinated.
The family funded Cecil Rhodes in the creation of the nation of Rhodesia, and took control of the Rio Tinto mining company to extract resources from the country. After Rhodes death the Rothschilds managed his estate and set up the Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford. In 1875 the Rothschilds financed two great projects, the first channel tunnel connecting France to England, and assisting Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in purchasing the Suez canal. In 1886 they gain a substantial amount of Russian oil fields, forming the Caspian and Black Sea Petroleum Company, which quickly becomes the world’s second largest oil producer. In 1887 the Rothschilds finance a series of Diamond mines in South Africa, becoming the biggest shareholders of the De Beers company.
In 1891 a British Labour Leader made the following statement on the Rothschilds “This blood-sucking crew has been the cause of untold mischief and misery in Europe during the present century, and has piled up its prodigious wealth chiefly through fomenting wars between States which ought never to have quarrelled. Whenever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumours of war circulate and men’s minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity you may be sure that a Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbance.” The Rothschilds have financed several wars at this point. Obviously this is bad PR, which is why they purchased Reuters news agency to have some control of the media.
In 1895 Edmond James de Rothschild visited Palestine and began financing the first Jewish colonies there. In 1907 another Rothschild associate, Jacob Schiff, warned the New York Chamber of Commerce: “Unless we have a Central Bank with adequate control of credit resources, this country is going to undergo the most severe and far reaching money panic in its history.” Shortly after that speech the Panic of 1907 occured, in which the New York Stock Exchange lost half its value in 3 weeks. The same year the Japanese government approached the Rothschilds to finance the Russo-Japanese war, and the family issued 11.5 million pounds worth of war bonds, about 1.03 billion pounds today.
On December 22nd 1913, a third central bank was established in the United States, the Federal Reserve. “Federal” being an ironic term, as it is a private company with an estimated profit exceeding $150 billion per year and has never once published its accounts. Needless to say the Rothschilds still have shares in the company to this day. Woodrow Wilson, president during the creation of the Federal Reserve, later expressed regret over it saying “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world — no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
By 1914 the Rothschilds gained control of the three European news agencies, Wolff in Germany, Reuters in England, and Havas in France. In 1918 they financed the Bolsheviks and order them to execute Tsar Nicholas II. In 1919 the Versailles peace treaty was hosted by Baron Edmund de Rothschild, who during the conference created the state of Israel. A famous letter called the Balfour declaration was sent from the foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild, declaring the creation and recognition of Israel. Also in 1919 N M Rothschild and Sons are given the role to determine the daily price of gold, daily at 11 am, in the same room until 2004.
During World War 2, Nazi Germany devastated the Austrian Rothschilds and seized all their assets, forcing the family to escape to the United States and lose their entire fortunes, include a number of palaces and a huge amount of artwork. The banks assets became the property of Nazi Germany.
Around this time the influence and power of the Rothschilds began to decline. American financial firms began to overtake them in terms of power, and new names and banking dynasties rose up. Dilution of wealth is natural over time, especially over several generations. Two hundred years of consistent wealth is extremely impressive, considering their humble origins.
There are hundreds of descendants of Amschel Mayer Rothschild alive today. Mr Burns lookalike and current patriarch of the dynasty Jacob Rothschild doesn’t even make the billionaires list. Only one Rothschild appears on Forbes list of billionaires, Benjamin de Rothschild.
Estimating the true wealth of the Rothschilds is very difficult. Benjamin de Rothschild, richest of the living Rothschilds, is worth about $1.59 billion, not much compared to the $100 billion of Jeff Bezos. How much money could the entire family be worth? I have heard estimates that the entire family is worth $500 trillion dollars. However, the entire wealth of the world is estimated to be $200 trillion, less than half of the previous amount. The main remaining family business, the Rothschild group, is an investment bank with a revenue of approximately $500 million, in comparison Walmart has an annual revenue of nearly $500 billion. If I had to give them a charitable estimate, I would say the entire family is worth around $1 to $2 trillion dollars today, still making them the richest family in the world. The fact is that while the Rothschilds used to be some of the wealthiest people who ever lived, their current descendents are measly multi-millionaires and single digit billionaires. Empires rise and fall, and the Rothschilds are no exception. If they are known for anything today, it is their excellent wine estates.
The lessons we can draw from the Rothschilds is that war racketeering is a profitable business, control of the money supply is control of a nation, and that you too could rise up from poverty to form one of the richest families ever.
(End Quote : ”If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.” — Gutle Schnaper, wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and mother of his five sons )
What interesting facts do you know about the Rothschild family?
While it is a new podcast I am very excited to talk about what I find an important topic, the truth about money. I have ~64 episodes planned already, and this one in particular excites me. If you’d like to check out my other videos you can find them here.
Carthagefield: I don’t know about the claims of the Rothschilds owning shares in the Federal Reserve (or any other central banks for that matter), it’s an oft-repeated myth but one I’ve never seen convincing evidence for. I can however comment on the early history of the Rothschilds before they moved into banking at the start of the 19th century.
> Rothschild expanded banking services to the crown prince in 1769, becoming the court factor, or court banker; since only Jewish people could lend with interest, as the practice of usury was forbidden in Christianity.
Firstly, the Rothschilds weren’t properly involved in banking until the 1790s. Prior to that they were mainly coin changers and antique dealers, working from their home in the [Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Judengasse) (source: House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson). As for moneylending being an exclusively Jewish profession, that had not been the case since the 13th century. During the middle ages, in some countries Jews were forced into moneylending because of Christian usury laws that forbade Christians from charging interest. This was also good news for Jews (or so they thought) because generally speaking they were not allowed to practice other professions due to being barred from trade guilds or owning land. This arrangement lasted roughly from the 11th century until the 13th century, when Christian [Lombards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards) from northern Italy invented a clever accounting technique known as “double-entry book-keeping”, a system still used widely today. One of the revolutionary aspects of this new system was that it allowed interest on a loan to be presented in the accounts in such a way that didn’t break the Church’s usury laws, and thus via a clever loop hole Christians were finally able to openly engage in moneylending. This essentially made Jews “surplus to requirements”, and soon after the Lombards moved in, countries in western Europe (including [England in 1290](https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6gl7yi/til_in_1290_jews_were_banned_from_england_for_300/dir79p3/?context=3)) began to either expel the Jews or, as with the case of the Italian and German states, Jews were banned from moneylending and forced to live in [segregated ghettos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ghettos_in_Europe) in tremendous poverty. It was also shortly after this period that the Catholic church relaxed the usury laws, and Protestants have never had such restrictions against Christians.
From then onwards, Christian banking flourished and all the largest banking families of Europe were Christian, including the [Fuggers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugger) and [Welsers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welser) of Germany, and the [Medici](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Medici) and [Peruzzi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruzzi) families of Italy. Modern banking today is largely the legacy of Christian bankers, especially the Lombards who [developed](http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=gkl) much of the early banking system in Europe. Modern Jewish involvement in banking didn’t really begin to flourish until the 19th century, when European countries began to tear down the ghettos and [give Jews civil rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_emancipation) for the first time. Many modern “Jewish” banks, particularly in America, started during the 19th century simply because traditional Gentile banks wouldn’t hire Jews.
> He began financing wars, lending money to England to hire Hessian mercenaries which were used by England in the American Revolution.
This part is unequivocally false. The Hessian mercenaries were supplied to Britain by Prince Wilhelm of Hesse, and the Rothschild’s financial activity at this time was entirely limited to Frankfurt. The only connection that I’m aware of to the Hessian mercenaries happened in 1794, when Rothschild offered to sell a quantity of silver to the Hessian war treasury “at the best possible price.”
> During the 1770s he financed Adam Weishaupt, the man credited with starting the Order of the Illuminati.
In the 1770s the Rothschilds were modest antique and coin dealers in the Frankfurt ghetto. I find it extremely unlikely that they financed Weishaupt, who lived hundreds of miles away in Bavaria, as moneylending was not their business, nor were they wealthy enough to do so at that time. Interestingly, the [Illuminati](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati) (when it actually existed) banned Jews from joining, something that most secret societies did at the time, including many Freemason lodges. This institutional discrimination against Jews was quite typical of the period, with universities, trade guilds, political establishments and in fact nearly every public organisation excluding Jews from membership. Things only started to improve in this regards in the 19th century following the emancipation of Jews and the abolishment of Jewish ghettos in Europe.
I can’t cover all your points (sorry for the wall of text), but I hope that will be of some help to you.
ChinaXpat: You cant really understand the Rothschild agenda without revealing the complex network of proxies they use to implement initiatives.
The most famous proxy is George Soros.
FR3DF3NST3R: They have a large house on the Greek island of Corfu which is the same place Prince Phillip was born. Prince Charles holidays there.
CaucasianEagle: They employed Joseph Stalin. It’s in the book “young stalin”.
Also check out their monopoly of egyptian cotton and ownership of the suez canal which profited off the american civil war.
They were oil titans owning Shell, built the railroads and got out right before wwI and the bolshevik revolution.
Do you or anyone have any information that connects them with every world central bank? (Except IRAN, NK and Syria).
Step2TheJep: They supposedly own *The Economist* which [published a curious cryptocurrency prediction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCCEcZ_GvKY) back in 1988.
Yes, 1988.
CaucasianEagle: Their bank collapse caused the great depression.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creditanstalt
Mikhail khordokovsky was going to give all his assets to jacob rothschild when he was arrested by vladamir putin
https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg108929.html
CrabMasterFlash: They use their tongues to swiftly catch flies. Sorry that was a well written post I just couldn’t resist suggesting they’re Lizards.
Occams-shaving-cream: Well, for one, they bow down to the Bogdanoffs.
spiritualsurvivor23: I saw somewhere about their exclusive illuminate mask costume balls that were for the elite only. Alot of them were goats head masks (symbolism)
I believe they do own all the banks as well as connections with the Koch brothers. & influence world politics more han we know.
We also know that they are extremely lowkey thats why few people do know about them.
Only thing ive seen in recent news is his one marriage of their children to nicky hilton…
But yea truly powerful evil people wont post a pic on instgram wearing gucci belts just saying
Harvestfund: I worked for a small company that had a billionaire investor who was a beneficiary of a Rothschild trust, but google searching his name and “Rothschild” brought up nothing.
JigabooFriday: Not sure if it’s related but a large section of Antarctica is named Rothschild.
Thought that was sort of weird given the anonymity regarding the land mass, especially recently.
Hinckapuss: Be sure to include this photo of Lynne de Rothschild with one of her art treasures
https://imgoat.com/uploads/bd7939d674/75124.jpg
DrSchmoo: They funded Churchill falls Hydro project in Canada, cost 1 billion 45 years ago and is still the 2nd largest hydro dam in North America.
Some more tibits…
A Rothschild married a Sassoon, Rio Tinto, Brazil, the Queen, the fiddler on the roof, the Vatican, Grover Cleveland. I can go on for days.
Have a look at what boards they chair in corporate and non profits.
blueweed908: They are pawns of the many antichrist that came and gone.
Whaddaya Say?