An anti-Semitic film made in Nazi Germany in 1940 about the ascent of the Jewish Rothschild family to the summits of European finance. This was probably made partly in response to Hollywood's The House of Rothschild (1934), which was sympathetic to the Rothschilds.
In 1806, Mayer Rothschild, the patriarch of the family residing in Frankfurt receives a huge sum of money for custody from the local margrave who is on the run from the Napoleonic troops. Mayer decides to send the money to his son Nathan who lives in England and is trying to build the British side of the dynasty. Nathan, who is increasingly envied and seen as a foreign upstart by the other financiers in London, decides to offer his services to the British government as a paymaster to the army of the Duke of Wellington (who is fighting Napoleon in the European continent), using the considerable connections of the family in the continent. Eventually, and thanks in part to the advance knowledge of the outcome of the battle of Waterloo, Nathan would be able to make a considerable fortune at the expense of the other London merchants. The final note tells that while the present Rothschilds have escaped from Europe (that is, after Germany's victory in the battle of France in June 1940), they remain in Britain where they basically control the government.
Compared to other anti-Semitic films made by the Nazis like Jud Suss or Der Ewige Jude this movie is relatively restrained, the Jews here are portrayed as devious and slimy but not as downright evil. I guess the movie's message is about how the Rothschilds profited greatly from the wars (in this case the Napoleonic wars). One of the surprising things about this movie is how literate it is, and how intricate is its plot. Nowadays, a plot so complicated would probably not make it into production, the filmmakers would be told to lighten it up and dumb it down in order for the audience to understand it. Erich Ponto and Carl Kuhlmann are suitably sneaky as Mayer and Nathan Rothschild, the other actors cause less of an impression, and there is a completely unnecessary subplot about a British officer trying to woo the daughter of an English financier. But if you can see beyond the questionable ideology, this is a well made movie.
In 1806, Mayer Rothschild, the patriarch of the family residing in Frankfurt receives a huge sum of money for custody from the local margrave who is on the run from the Napoleonic troops. Mayer decides to send the money to his son Nathan who lives in England and is trying to build the British side of the dynasty. Nathan, who is increasingly envied and seen as a foreign upstart by the other financiers in London, decides to offer his services to the British government as a paymaster to the army of the Duke of Wellington (who is fighting Napoleon in the European continent), using the considerable connections of the family in the continent. Eventually, and thanks in part to the advance knowledge of the outcome of the battle of Waterloo, Nathan would be able to make a considerable fortune at the expense of the other London merchants. The final note tells that while the present Rothschilds have escaped from Europe (that is, after Germany's victory in the battle of France in June 1940), they remain in Britain where they basically control the government.
Compared to other anti-Semitic films made by the Nazis like Jud Suss or Der Ewige Jude this movie is relatively restrained, the Jews here are portrayed as devious and slimy but not as downright evil. I guess the movie's message is about how the Rothschilds profited greatly from the wars (in this case the Napoleonic wars). One of the surprising things about this movie is how literate it is, and how intricate is its plot. Nowadays, a plot so complicated would probably not make it into production, the filmmakers would be told to lighten it up and dumb it down in order for the audience to understand it. Erich Ponto and Carl Kuhlmann are suitably sneaky as Mayer and Nathan Rothschild, the other actors cause less of an impression, and there is a completely unnecessary subplot about a British officer trying to woo the daughter of an English financier. But if you can see beyond the questionable ideology, this is a well made movie.