De Rothchilds blootgelegd

The Rothschild family (known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds) is a European family of German Jewish origin that established European banking and finance houses from the late eighteenth century. Five lines of the Austrian branch of the family were elevated into the Austrian nobility, being given hereditary baronies of the Habsburg Empire by Emperor Francis II in 1816. The British branch of the family was elevated into the British nobility at the request of Queen Victoria. It has been argued that during the 19th century, the family possessed by far the largest private fortune in the world, and by far the largest fortune in modern history.

The family's rise to European prominence began in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild,[6] a money changer. Born in the ghetto (called "Judengasse" or Jewish Alley) of Frankfurt, he developed a finance house and spread his empire by installing each of his five sons in European cities to conduct business.

Unlike the old court Jews, the new kind of international firm the Rothschilds created was impervious to local attack. In 1819, as if to demonstrate that newly acquired Jewish rights were illusionary so far, anti-Semitic violence broke out in many parts of Germany. These Hep-Hep riots as they were called, included an assault on the Rothschild house in Frankfurt. It made no difference. Nor did a further attack during the 1848 revolution. The money was no longer there. It was paper, circulating through the world. Their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mobs, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs.

Another essential part of Mayer Rothschild's strategy for future success was to keep control of their businesses in family hands, allowing them to maintain full discretion about the size of their wealth and their business achievements. About 1906, the Jewish Encyclopedia noted: "The practise initiated by the Rothschilds of having several brothers of a firm establish branches in the different financial centers was followed by other Jewish financiers, like the Bischoffsheims, Pereires, Seligmans, Lazards, and others, and these financiers by their integrity and financial skill obtained credit not alone with their Jewish confrères, but with the banking fraternity in general. By this means Jewish financiers obtained an increasing share of international finance during the middle and last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The head of the whole group was the Rothschild family...". It also states: "Of more recent years, non-Jewish financiers have learned the same cosmopolitan method, and, on the whole, the control is now rather less than more in Jewish hands than formerly." This practice followed a royal and aristocratic technique, which also was copied later by business dynasties such as the Du Pont family.

Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with carefully arranged marriages, including between first or second cousins, although by the later 19th century, almost all Rothschilds had started to marry outside the family, usually into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties. His sons were:
Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773--1855): Frankfurt, died childless, passed to sons of Salomon and Calmann
Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1774--1855): Vienna
Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777--1836): London
Calmann Mayer Rothschild (1788--1855): Naples
Jakob Mayer Rothschild (1792--1868): Paris

The Rothschild coat of arms contains a clenched fist with five arrows symbolizing the five sons of Mayer Rothschild, a reference to Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior". The family motto appears below the shield, in Latin, Concordia, Integritas, Industria, (Harmony, Integrity, Industry). The German family name means "Red Shield". Today, it would be spelled "Rotschild", and is pronounced approximately ROTE-shillt in German, not wroth(s)-child as it is in English.

Families by country:
Rothschild banking family of Naples
Rothschild banking family of England
Rothschild banking family of Austria
Rothschild banking family of Germany
Rothschild banking family of France
Rothschild banking family of Switzerland

Alois Schicklgruber—father of Adolf Hitler—was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber and Baron Rothschild.
The Schicklgruber name was changed to Hitler in 1876.