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 w ...
(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
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
, his brothers having been dispatched to set up banking houses in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, and
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
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, timezone = CET
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, timezone_DST ...
.
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 M ...
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 'Easte ...
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
{{Germany-business-bio-stub