Bethmann bank

Founding

The establishment of the Bethmann bank in Frankfurt am Main is dated to 1748, the year when Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715-1793), who had inherited the trading enterprise of his uncle "Jakob Adami" in 1746, officially took his brother Simon Moritz as a partner. From that point the enterprise was called "Gebrüder Bethmann".

Within a short span of time, the Bethmann bank developed into one of Frankfurt's leading (Christian-owned) banks, on a scale comparable only to its younger rival, the House of Rothschild. The bank's fortunes began to rise in 1754 based on its business in imperial, princely and municipal bonds and skyrocketed from 1778, thanks to the bank's innovation of breaking the Austrian emperor's borrowing down into "sub-bonds" ("Partialobligationen") at 1000 gulden each offered to the public, which made them tradeable in secondary markets. This transformed the bank from a lender to an underwriter of bond issues. At one point, the profits of "Gebrüder Bethmann" exceeded those of all its Frankfurt competitors together, and it ranked first among all German banks.

Historians on the halcyon years

Steamboats and railroads

Standing still as the world turned faster

As Business Unit of ABN AMRO

Trivia

* In 1763, when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his family were visiting Paris, a letter of recommendation penned by a wife of either Johann Philipp or Simon Moritz Bethmann and addressed to Baron de Grimm served as an effective door opener, as Leopold Mozart wrote afterward. [ [http://wikiwikiweb.de/Mozarts%20Reisen German web page about the travels of Mozart] ]

* When Johann Wolfgang Goethe traveled to Italy in 1768, he was using a bill of exchange payable by a Roman banker and drawn on the Bethmann bank, which had issued the letter to his pseudonym of Möller, not knowing the true identity of the payee. [Helbing, p.7.]

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/ferguson-rothschild.html Niall Ferguson: "The House of Rothschild"]
* [http://www.eugen-gutmann-gesellschaft.de/_downloads/finanzplatz_frankfurt.pdf Zur Geschichte des Finanzplatzes Frankfurt am Main] : Manuscript of 2004 talk by Michael Jurk (Historical Archive of Dresdner Bank)
* [http://www.abnamroprivatebanking.com/de/delbethmaff#delbethmaff/geschichte ABN AMRO Private Banking webpage] showing timeline of Bethmann bank up to and past its merger into ABN AMRO
* [http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/banken-versicherungen/die-bank-die-goethes-reisen-finanzierte;851888 "Die Bank, die Goethes Reisen finanzierte"] by Claudia Wanner, article in Handelsblatt, first published 27 January 2005

Notes

Bibliography

* Claus Helbing: "Die Bethmanns. Aus der Geschichte eines alten Handelshauses zu Frankfurt am Main". Gericke (publishers), Wiesbaden 1948.
* Alexander Dietz: "Frankfurter Handelsgeschichte", Glashütten 1971, reprint of 1925 edition
* Egon Caesar Conte Corti: "Rise of the House of Rothschild", B. Lunn (translator), Books for Business 2001 (reprint of 1928 translation published by Gollancz), ISBN 978-0894990588, [http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Rothschild-Count-Caesar-Corti/dp/0894990586/ref=ed_oe_p Amazon.co.uk searchable online view]
* Erich Achterberg: "Frankfurter Bankherren", 2nd revised edition. Fritz Knapp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971. This book was published without an ISBN
* Wolfgang Klötzer (ed.): "Frankfurter Biographie. Erster Band A-L". Verlag Waldemar Kramer (publishers), Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3
* Hans Sarkowicz (ed.): "Die großen Frankfurter", Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, 1994, ISBN 3-458-16561-4
* Ralf Roth: "Stadt und Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main", doctoral thesis, University of Frankfurt am Main, 1996
* Paul Johnson: "A History of the Jews". Harper Perennial, 1988, ISBN 978-006-091533-9
* Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich: "Finanzplatz Frankfurt", Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-406-45184-5:* Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich: "Frankfurt as a Financial Center: From Medieval Trade Fair to European Banking Centre", Munich, 1999, ISBN 3406456715, [http://books.google.de/books?id=UAY9ugffPXQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Holtfrerich&lr=lang_en&num=100&as_brr=0&sig=ACfU3U3GUl3UXxX23JE9JovtYdoIqZdJoA Google Books Preview]
* Niall Ferguson: "The House of Rothschild. Volume 1, Money's Prophets: 1798-1848". Penguin, 1999, ISBN 978-0140240849

See also

Bethmann family

Bethmanns and Rothschilds