Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Alexandra Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ centre of the industry until the outbreak of the First World War.⁵⁶ The new force had once again captured the Berliners’ imagination, and their endless catalogue of insults was expanded to include references to ‘crossed wires’, ‘weak currents’, and the need for a ‘new bulb’. With characteristic arrogance Berlin began to call itself ‘the light of the world’ and the ‘city of light’, labels which played an important part in the image of modernity and the metropolis which swept Berlin in the early twentieth century.⁵⁷

      The railroads and new industries gobbled up resources and their voracious appetite called for ‘money, money, and more money’. Behrenstrasse, the new financial district, was created to fill the need. In the age of absolutism banking had been strongest in German residence cities where, given the Church ban on usury, Jewish bankers (Hoffaktoren and Hofagenten) had managed the finances at court.⁵⁸ The Rothschilds, for example, were descendants of a financial agent of the richest German prince, the elector of Hesse-Kassel, while others like the Kaullas in Stuttgart, the Kaskels in Dresden and the Oppenheims in Cologne had dominated their respective princely courts. Conversely, in free cities such as Hamburg and Bremen where there were no ruling princes, banking was almost non-existent. Berlin was the exception: although bankers like Ephraim and Isaak were employed by the Hohenzollerns they had been constricted by the unique and highly developed Prussian bureaucracy.⁵⁹ Berlin’s lack of a banking tradition therefore left the way open to newcomers who pioneered modern financial practices in the nineteenth century. By the time of unification it was the new financial capital of Germany.

      Berlin owed its new status to the ingenuity of a new group of Jewish families, the most important being the Mendelssohns and Mendelssohn-Bartholdys, Bleichröder-Schwabacks, Magnuses, Warschauers and Plauts. These were bankers for the new age, and quickly overtook the old private banks, which did not have the means to meet the increased demands for capital. The vast demand for money from government and railway consortia⁶⁰ led to involvement in the formation of joint stock banks like the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft. The first modern German credit bank, the Darmstadter, was founded in 1853. There was a great deal of initial resistance to it, both from the established small family banks and from the conservative Prussian elite, who wanted to see the creation of a larger state bank over which they could exert direct control. Frederick William IV saw the new bank as a ‘disgusting example of French speculative fever and corruption’ and demanded it be closed. Bismarck leapt to its defence, albeit for typically devious reasons. The new bank posed a direct threat to the Rothschilds, who were aligned with the Austrians; damaging them would also hurt his enemies in Vienna. Whatever Bismarck’s motives, the victory of the Darmstadter Bank over the conservative forces was of great significance, and the bank paved the way for many others of its kind.

      By the 1860s even the most conservative elements in Prussia had come to see that industrial expansion had outgrown the smaller banks and would best be served by joint stock companies. These would also be based in Berlin. In 1856 David Hansemann founded the Diskonto Bank, which was soon followed by the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft and the Berliner Bankverein.⁶¹ Soon even banks such as the Darmstadter and Dresdner moved to Berlin. By 1870 the ‘D-Banks’ – the Disconto Gesellschaft, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank and the Darmstädter – were playing a vital role in rapid industrialization by raising capital for new enterprises, capital which in Britain had been supplied by the City of London. Here, however, the banks combined commercial banking with long-term industrial financing and provided the investment capital for a number of the new heavy industries in Germany which in turn gave them immense control over important sectors of the economy.⁶² The Reichsbank was founded in Berlin in 1857 to keep a watchful eye on the dealings of the new financial institutions.

      Berlin’s economic importance increased dramatically: in 1850 the circulation of notes in Prussia was around 18 million thalers; by 1875 it was 290 million. The Berlin banking quarter came to reflect this increasing prosperity and security: all along the Behrenstrasse, which ran parallel to the south of Unter den Linden, enormous marble palaces were erected which projected Berliners’ unshakeable faith in the new system. (After the war the ruins of the old banks were torn down and the blocks of stone used to construct the new East German zoo.) Bankers themselves became well-known figures: Carl Fürstenburg was adored by Berliners for his biting wit; in describing a dinner given by the Prussian Minister of Finance he said, ‘Madame Minister appeared in a low but unsuccessful décolleté, a bit like her husband who also sports an uncovered deficit.’ When asked if he knew who had died that day he retorted, ‘Today, anyone will do!’ Hermann Sudermann hinted at Bleichröder’s new status in his notorious play Sodoms Ende when the character Weisse explains: ‘We cannot all scale the luminous heights of humanity where Goethe, Bismarck and Bleichröder stand … although if you open a newspaper in the provinces you will find my name.’⁶³

      The new Stock Exchange was closely linked to the industrial transformation and between 1851 and 1857 119 joint stock companies were founded in Prussia. In its second year the Berlin Stock Exchange reported a ‘very considerable and lively turnover in stocks and shares in internal and foreign accounts and for investment and speculation purposes’.⁶⁴ Berlin trading was heaviest in commodities such as grain, coal and iron, but money was soon needed for growth in industries from metalwork to textiles. The resources of the propertied classes were restricted and financing with one’s own credit and capital was risky, so even in the 1850s entrepreneurs were going to the public to collect capital assets and use them to finance their new projects. The share quickly became a fashionable object in Berlin, a status symbol and topic of polite conversation amongst the very new members of the middle class. The money generated by industry helped to fuel investment, and Berlin found itself in a seemingly endless upward spiral of growth and prosperity. The immensely optimistic newly rich middle class began to change the social face of the city, and the late nineteenth century was to become the golden age of the Besitzbürgertum.

      These propertied middle classes initially consisted of self-made men, often the sons of craftsmen or skilled labourers like Borsig or professionals like Siemens who had, through skill and sheer hard work, made fortunes for themselves in the new industries. These men could not aspire to ennoblement and instead worked towards non-hereditary titles and conferments which became highly coveted until well into the 1890s. Receiving the title of Kommerzienrat or Privy Councillor meant that a businessman had ‘arrived’; a title could greatly enhance the standing of the recipient’s business and substantially improve its credit rating. The titles were granted by the king on the recommendation of the Minister of Commerce and holders were nominated by public figures, noblemen, municipal corporations or dignitaries; sons sometimes recommended their fathers in connection with some business jubilee. At least until 1886 a candidate had to pass through a rigorous selection procedure. He had to own or be part owner of a successful enterprise and be active in its management; he might have developed a new branch of industry or enhanced Prussia’s business reputation abroad; he should have done charitable or Church or municipal government work; he had to have good labour relations in his factories, and he had to be considered a ‘notable’ and play a prominent public role. In Berlin a candidate required a minimum personal fortune of 1 million marks, although candidates from the provinces needed half that much. The political restrictions were made very clear: the candidate had to be ‘politically reliable’ – support for the liberals was a tremendous handicap which had to be compensated for by other qualifications; opposition to government made it very difficult for one to get a title and liberal activists and active supporters of the Fortschrittspartei (Progress party) were barred without question.⁶⁵

      The preferments were something of a meritocracy in the otherwise class-and code-ridden city, and one measure of this was the large number of titles granted to Jewish businessmen. The later tragedy of the Holocaust was particularly difficult to accept in a city which rose to prominence largely because of its entrepreneurial Jewish population; indeed without the input of these Jews the city would never have reached the economic and financial heights of the nineteenth century. Unlike areas such as the Ruhr, where most title holders were Gentiles, over 40 per cent of those in Berlin were Jewish and it was estimated that about half the economic activity СКАЧАТЬ