Baron Amschel Mayer von Rothschild (12 June 1773 – 6 December 1855) was a
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
banker of the wealthy
Rothschild family.
He was the second child and eldest son of
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812; also spelled ''Anschel'') was a German-Jewish banker and the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Referred to as a "founding father of international finance", Rothschild ...
(1744–1812), the founder of the dynasty, and Gutlé Rothschild née Schnapper (1753–1849).
On the death of Mayer Amschel in 1812, Amschel Mayer succeeded as head of the bank at
Frankfurt am Main, his brothers having been dispatched to set up banking houses in
Paris,
London,
Naples, and
Vienna.
As Amschel Mayer died childless, the sons of his brothers (
Anselm, son of
Salomon, and
Mayer Carl and
Wilhelm Carl, sons of Carl) assumed responsibility for the business from 1855.
He was ennobled as Amschel Mayer von Rothschild in 1817 and became a
Freiherr
(; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire ...
(baron) in 1822.
Amschel Mayer Rothschild was close to
Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on ...
circles, and was referred to by
Eastern European Jews
The expression 'Eastern European Jewry' has two meanings. Its first meaning refers to the current political spheres of the Eastern European countries and its second meaning refers to the Jewish communities in Russia and Poland. The phrase 'East ...
as "the pious Rothschild" ( yi, der frummer Rothschild).
Honours
* Commander of the
Order of Leopold.
[RD of 23.06.1838]
References
External links
*
The Rothschild Archive
German bankers
Amschel Mayer
18th-century German Jews
1773 births
1855 deaths
Burials at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Frankfurt
19th-century German businesspeople
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