Gold and Iron: Bismark, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire

by Fritz Stern

Book Overview

Winner of the Lionel Trilling Award Nominated for the National Book Award "A major contribution to our understanding of some of the great themes of modern European history--the relations between Jews and Germans, between economics and politics, between banking and diplomacy." --James Joll, The New York Times Book Review "I cannot praise this book too highly. It is a work of original scholarship, both exact and profound. It restores a buried chapter...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394740343
• ISBN13: 9780394740348
• Release Date: September 1979
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Au 196, Fe 56; Combined Atomic Weight 252

That's how heavy this 600 page history of the Prussian unification of Germany is! This study is so gravely massive, so chock-full of info and insights, that I'm sorely tempted to say: "Go ahead! Read it! I double-dare you!" It's taken me several months, with some prolonged stagnations in airport lounges, to finish it, and I'm not the slowest reader in juvenile hall. It's almost as indigestible as gold and a lot less malleable than iron. It's not at all badly written or poorly organized; it's just long, stolid, detailed, insistent, and dry. The writing reminds me a good deal of the American historian David Hackett Fischer; if either author were paid by the word, Bill Gates would need to borrow pocket money from them. Honestly, I had to treat each chapter as a separate volume, and give myself a concentration break between them. If I haven't discouraged you from considering this book yet, let me say that it's also one of the most impressive feats of historiography that I've encountered in many years. It's well worth the work, assuming you have any interest in the history of Germany, or of European Jewry, or of political power in action. The "gold" in the title stands for the plutocratic banker Gerson Bleichröder, while the "iron" represents Bismark, the Iron Chancellor whose political and military tactics led to the unification of Germany in the last third of the 19th Century. Structurally, the book is a kind of parallel biography of the two men, who were indispensable to each other for most of their careers. Bismark's life and thought have been an entire industry for historians since his first political victories, but Bleichröder's role in Bismark's successes and rare failures has been neglected to the point of erasure. That historical amnesia was the starting point of Fritz Stern's investigations, when Stern became aware of the vast archive of the Banker's correspondence with the Chancellor and other personages of the era. It's a risky over-simplification of Stern's analysis to say that Bleichröder and his "gold" were necessary adjuncts to Bismark's accomplishments, but this book goes a long way to justify that hypothesis. Bleichröder was Bismark's personal financial manager, his "ear" to the world of finance both in Germany and elsewhere, his almost constant advisor and his favorite "behind-the-throne" manipulator, and perhaps as close to a 'friend' as the imperious Prince could have. Their 'atomic weights' as gold and iron are metaphorically inappropriate, in that Bismark's Iron always overbalanced and outweighed all the Gold of the richest financier in Germany. How politics and finance melded in the alloy of 19th C Germany is the chief subject of the book. Bismark's career began in a financially backward feudal society of land-proud Junkers, the most reactionary society of western/central Europe, and ended in the rapidly industrializing, militarily overbearing Germany that sought to rival England and overwhelm France in the race to colonialis

Elective Affinities

I have previously reviewed other books by Fritz Stern, an American historian of German-Jewish descent, born in a part of Germany that is now a part of Poland. He is one of the most interesting writers on German history of the 19th-20th centuries, and he has a lot to say on the history of German Jews and German anti-semitism. His huge monography on Bismarck and his Jewish banker Bleichroeder is a masterpiece of historical jig saw puzzling, and it tells a fascinating story. We are looking at the high times of German imperial adolescence. Stern loves to play with the stylistic pattern of pairs: Blood and Iron (said Bismarck). Or Coal and Iron (said Keynes, later). Or Gold and Iron (says Stern, still later). More pairs: power & money, Junker & Jew, Bismarck & banker, old nobility & new presumptions, aristocrats & nouveaux riches. Gerson Bleichroeder was the first Prussian Jew who got ennobled without prior conversion. To his world of Prussian power, he was a convenience & an embarrassment. In the relation of the two men, Bismarck was dominant and Bleichroeder useful. There is no doubt whatsoever about the primacy of politics over economics. The banker thirsted for respectability & acceptance. He cherished secrecy, but sought recognition. His career embodied the ambivalence of Jewish success: needed, pampered, feted, maligned. Jews performed great economic feats, they were immeasurably useful and resented. Bleichroeder dropped out of German historiography like a stone in water, leaving mainly ephemeral ripples (until Stern went after him). Even Bismarck did not mention him in the first two volumes of his memoirs. Historians would give Bismarck plenty of shelf space (thousands of dedicated publications) and Bleichroeder none. Apotheosis & oblivion. This study was triggered by the appearance of a Bleichroeder letter archive in his former bank. Stern started his sleuthing work from there and then hit mother lodes in the archives of the Rothschilds and the Bismarcks. It is a remarkable job for its reconstruction of ignored informal structures in the politics of the time. It is a history of a social web. It is like a fat novel of the 19th century. (Do not think of Thomas Mann, more of his brother Heinrich, eg the Untertan, the Blue Angel.) It shows how the atmosphere of imperial Germany exuded sentimentalized self-righteousness, copious hypocrisy, distressing servility. It is a record of people sowing the wind, not knowing that later generations would reap the whirlwind. The book is essential for students of German history. I wish Stern had applied more economics in its writing: I bet one could cut a third of the hulk without major damage to the message. By the way, I remember that Harry Flashman had an encounter with Bismarck in one of the early Flashman volumes. Which one was that? (Flashman barely survived the meeting...)

A Poignant Portrait of an Embattled Financier and His Times

The first major work expounding on Bismarck's pecuniary relationship with the prominent Prussian banker Gerson von Bleichroder, Gold and Iron is truly a seminal study about the rise of the German nation. It splendidly explores the creation of the Prusso-Germanic empire through the lens of Bismarck, its architect, and Bleichroder, his Jewish financier. Bleichroder became useful to Bismarck in many ways. He was embroiled in affaires d'Etat as well as Bismarck's affaires de famille. He managed the Chancellor's personal portfolio, helped finance wars against Denmark and Austria, and served as an intermediary for the massive indemnity levied against the French in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. Bleichroder's remarkable and long-running relationship with the Rothschilds made his services doubly worthwhile to both Bismarck and Germany. However, Stern makes the poignant observation that while Bleichroder's success won him access to the corridors of power everywhere, his very success prevented him from being truly free. He became a kind of Tantalus, always seeking out recognition and confirmation of his accomplishments without really attaining what he was reaching for: a position at parity, if not becoming primus inter pares, vis-à-vis his peers and contemporaries.Ponderous the book may be, but readers who are deeply interested in the political economy of Europe and in the crucial role played by embattled financiers in the rise of empires will be exceedingly enlightened--and entertained--by this monumental tome.

An Historical Masterpiece

Stern's magnificent work is one of the best pieces of historical research and writing of the last century. A strikingly original work, which transcends it specific topic, 'Gold & Iron' is a fascinating study of economics, politics and power and the relation between the three.Required reading for any self-respecting student of history.

Very informative; a little repetitive

A tremendous research job, revealing a lot about the way the world really worked. Bismarck was a bad, bad guy. My only complaint is that it got a little repetitive; editing out 10-15% of the text would make it much more readable.