This essay is a revised version of a talk given at the American Historical Association convention in December 1990. It summarizes parts of Dolores L. Augustine, “Die wilhelminische Wirtschaftselite. Sozialverhalten, soziales Selbstbewusstsein und Familie” (Ph.D. diss., Free University of Berlin, 1991). Research for this paper was supported in part by a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Information Agency. None of these organizations are responsible for the views expressed.

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4. Other recent works on the German-Jewish bourgeoisie include Kaplan, Marion A., The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women in German-Jewish Identity in Imperial Germany (Oxford, 1991);Google ScholarMosse, Werner E., The German-Jewish Economic Elite, 1820–1935: A Socio-Cultural Profile (Oxford, 1989);Google ScholarVolkov, Shulamit, “Jüdische Assimilation und jüdische Eigenart im Deutschen Kaiserreich,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983): 331–48;Google ScholarSholem, Gershom, “On the Social Psychology of the Jews in Germany, 1900–1933,” in Bronsen, David, ed., Jews and Germans from 1860 to 1933 (Heidelberg, 1979), 9–32;Google ScholarHellige, Hans Dieter, “Generationskonflikt, Selbsthass und die Entstehung antikapitalistischer Positionen im Judentum,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 5 (1979): 476–518;Google ScholarLandes, David, “Bleichröders and Rothschilds: The Problem of Continuity in the Family Firm,” in Rosenburg, Charles E., ed., The Family in History (Philadelphia, 1975), 95–114.Google Scholar

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8. Martin, Rudolf, Jahrbuch der Millionäre Deutschlands, 18 vols. (Berlin, 1912–1914).Google Scholar Data was supplemented with information from numerous reference works, such as the Neue Deutsche Biographie, 13 vols. (Berlin, 1953–1982)Google Scholar. The most important archive for the quantitative study was the “Institut zur Erforschung historischer Führungsschichten” in Bensheim, West Germany. The state archives of the GDR in Potsdam, Merseburg, Leipzig, and Dresden also yielded a considerable body of data. Further material was gained through correspondence with descendents of the persons under study, genealogists, and public archives in West Germany.

9. There has been a great deal of debate on which groups should be included as Jews. Ideally, an ethnic definition of Jewishness would include converted Jews and Christians, whose family was Jewish a couple of generations back—such as the Mendelssohns—only to the extent that these individuals considered themselves to be Jewish or who demonstrated solidarity with the Jewish community. In actual practice, it is very difficult to use self-definition as a criterion in a quantitative study. Thus, converted Jews and Christians of Jewish families were considered to be Jews for the purposes of the present study. For a similar definition of Jewishness, see Mosse, Werner E., Jews in the German Economy: The German-Jewish Economic Elite, 1820–1935 (Oxford, 1987), 1–2Google Scholar. Mosse points out that the Judaic religion constituted just one element of Jewish identity in this era, along with social origins, endogamy, family and business networks, and traditions.

10. For example, the heavy industrialist Fritz von Friedländer-Fuld. See Vierhaus, Rudolf, ed., Das Tagebuch der Baronin Spitzemberg, geb. Freiin von Varnbüler. Aufzeichnungen aus der Hofgesellschaft des Hohenzollernreiches, 3rd ed., (Göttingen, 1963), 456.Google Scholar

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12. Paraphrased in Hauschild-Thiessen, Renate, Bürgerstolz und Kaisertreue (Hamburg, 1979), 97; see 98–105.Google Scholar Also quoted and translated in Evans, Death, 35; see 33–35.

13. Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Dienststelle Merseburg, Geheimes Zivilkabinett, 2.2.1. Nr. 1048, Bl. 1–20. See Hauschild-Thiessen, Bürgerstolz, 97; Stein, Hans-Konrad, Der preussische Geldadel des 19. Jahrhunderts (unpublished Ph.D. diss. Hamburg, 1982), 17–18, 68.Google Scholar

14. See Evans, Death, 560–62.

15. See Blackbourn, David, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Reappraising German History in the Nineteenth Century,” in Blackbourn, David and Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarities of German History (Oxford and New York, 1984), 230–37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kaelble, “Wie feudal,” 164–66. On Hamburg, see Hauschild-Thiessen, Buägerstolz, 97.

16. See Rubinstein, William David, Men of Property (London, 1981), 170.Google Scholar

17. For a systematic classification of professions, see Lundgreen, Peter, Kraul, Margret, and Ditt, Karl, Bildungschancen und soziale Mobilität in der städtischen Gesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1988)Google Scholar, appendix 2, 319–64. (They define the upper middle class as part of the upper class.)

18. Included in this category are members of the high nobility (where no profession is known) and Landräte.

19. See Henning, Hansjoachim, “Das Bildungsbürgertum in den preussischen Westprovinzen” in Das westdeutsche Bürgertum in der Epoche der Hochindustrialisierung 1860–1914 (Wiesbaden, 1972), 267–413.Google Scholar

20. In Germany, teachers and professors were civil servants; Lutheran ministers were civil servants in some periods. Sociologically, these groups clearly belong to the Bildungsbürgertum.

21. Somewhat over half.

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33. The information on Wilhelm von Siemens is partly based on a collection of visiting cards (Siemens Archive, SAA 4/LC 999). See also Harries, Carl Dietrich, “Nachruf für Wilhelm von Siemens,” in Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen aus dem Siemens-Konzern, vol. 1 (Sonderabdruck, 1920), 6, 9 (also Siemens Archive).Google Scholar Harries was Wilhelm von Siemens's brother-in-law. On Georg von Siemens, see Helfferich, Karl, Georg von Siemens (Berlin, 1923), 3:240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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38. Did the Jews reject the Junkers or did the Junkers reject the Jews? It is interesting to note that the Prussian Junkers—anti-Semitic though they were—were not entirely averse to social contact and intermarriage with Jews, unlike, for example, the Hanseatic patricians, who were unwilling to share their salons and bedrooms with Jews. See Huret, Jules, En Allemagne. Berlin (Paris, 1909), 347–49.Google Scholar

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42. Ritter, Willy, von Wahlendorf, Liebermann, Erinnerung eines deutschen Juden 1863–1936, Piper, Ernst Reinhard, ed. (Munich and Zurich, 1988), 49.Google Scholar I presume that he is referring to Siegmund Aschrott.

43. See Tietz, Hermann Tietz, 49.

44. See Cecil, “Jew and Junker,” 49–50.

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54. See Huret, En Allemagne, 104–5; von Bunsen, Zeitgenossen, 72–73; Siemens Archive SAA 4/Lc 731, vol. 2, 462.

55. Schwering, Berlin Court, 218–19.

56. See Huret, En Allemagne, 104.

57. Schwering, Berlin Court, 254–55.

58. My comment.

59. Sloman, Erinnerungen, 91. See Schramm, Percy Ernst, Neun Generationen. Dreihundert Jahre deutscher “Kulturgeschichte” im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (Göttingen, 1964), 2:425–26.Google Scholar

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