Adelheid von Rothschild

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Adelheid "Ada" von Rothschild , also called Adélaïde de Rothschild in France (born August 19, 1853 in Frankfurt am Main , † June 22, 1935 in Paris ) was one of three strictly Orthodox daughters of the Frankfurt baron Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild and his Wife Baroness Mathilde von Rothschild. The father was the last of the Frankfurt branch of the Rothschild banking house. After his death in 1901, the company was liquidated because it should have been a male successor and a Rothschild. But none of the clan showed any interest. Because of her mother's abilities and inclinations, Adelheid was very musical and, also because of her parents' house and her outstanding social position, she had a keen interest in art.

husband

Adelheid was chosen to marry her cousin Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934), who was eight years her senior . He was the youngest child of James Mayer Rothschild and Betty von Rothschild, the daughter of the founder of the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family Salomon Meyer Freiherr von Rothschild (1774-1855). Her son grew up in the world of the Second French Republic and the Second French Empire. He was a soldier in the National Guard in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and nevertheless married a German six years later.

Ruins of the Château Rothschild in Boulogne-sur-Seine (now a district of Paris), sold after the war

Life in paris

The wedding took place on October 24, 1877. She left a home where religion was very important. The French Rothschilds were also religious, but with differences from the Frankfurters. The people of Frankfurt were considered stricter and interpreted things more conservatively than their relatives in lively Paris. A change for Adelheid, of which her great-grandson Benjamin de Rothschild reported, who reports on her reservedness towards fashionable Parisian life. He describes her as the reserved, extremely religious wife of her Parisian cousin.

In Paris, the young couple shared the residences on Rue Laffitte and the Chateau Rothschild in Boulogne-sur-Seine with Edmond's mother Betty de Rothschild. The large area of ​​the now ruined chateau was bought in 1817 by Edmond James' father Jakob Rothschild, also known as Baron James de Rothschild . From 1855 to 1861 Joseph Armand Berthelin built him a magnificent summer residence, which his youngest son Edmond James inherited. For over eighty years it was one of the meeting places not only for Parisian society. They also had property in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and the Chateau Rothschild in Armainvilliers. This chateau was acquired by Edmond James in 1877, completely abandoned, rebuilt with the latest technology in the Norman-English style, including farms and a large orangery. This property now belongs to the King of Morocco.

Their children

The couple Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and Baroness Adelheid de Rothschild had three children:

  • James "Jimmy" Armand Edmond de Rothschild (1878–1957)

was a French-born British politician and philanthropist who had no keen interest in banking. Later he even had his stake in the French Rothschild banking house paid out by his father. He first went to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and then moved to Trinity College (Cambridge) . He was said to have three passions: horses, politics and art and these in order. This can already be explained by the family background, as his grandfather James de Rothschild already laid the foundations earlier than his English relatives with his own horse breeding and running a horse racing stable in the stables of the Chateau Ferrieres built for him. His father Edmond James de Rothschild (1845–1934), co-heir of the racing stable and stud, had the famous “Sans Souci” house built in Gouvieux- Chantilly for his horses. He was also a banker with reservations and devoted himself more to building up his colonies in Palestine. His very large art collection later formed the basis of the Louvre's graphics collection . In 1913, he married 35-year-old, the then 17-year-old Dorothy Mathilde Pinto , which for him during the First World War, the connections to his father and Dr. Chaim Weizmann stopped.

His military service was also binational. During the First World War, he initially served in the French Army and ended this First World War as a major in the British Army of the 39th (Jewish) Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers (also known as the Jewish Legion ). He left France after World War I and went to England. In 1919 he became a naturalized Briton and in 1922 he inherited the huge Waddesdon Manor with its countless art treasures from Alice de Rothschild as the estate of his great-uncle Baron Ferdinand von Rothschild . With his bustling wife Mathilde Dorothy "Dolly" he took over the activities and financial support for the establishment of the State of Israel, into which his father Baron Edmond James de Rothschild alone is said to have paid around 50 million dollars. Jimmy de Rothschild financed the construction of the Knesset building with around 6 million and the construction of the Supreme Court. Baron James "Jimmy" Armand Edmond de Rothschild died childless. He assigned the Waddesdon Manor building to the National Trust , the mobile assets (including the art treasures) and the site including the nearby Eythrope mansion, still built by Alice von Rothschild, to his wife Mathilde Dorothy "Dolly" de Rothschild. In 1988, she bequeathed her greatest legacy, Britain (almost 100 million pounds), to her nephew Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild (born April 29, 1936), a very wealthy investment banker before the inheritance.

  • Maurice de Rothschild (1881-1967)

He was considered the black sheep of the family because he inherited 1/3 of the Parisian bank, but was forcibly paid out by his cousins. He had additional assets through considerable inheritances, including those of his uncle Adolphe de Rothschild and aunt Julie. He increased this by speculating on the stock exchanges and product markets in the USA during and after the Second World War . Due to their enormous increase in value after the end of the war, he was counted among the richest living Rothschild. One of his residences was the Chateau de Pregny on Lake Geneva , built and inherited by Uncle Adolphe , the Paris city palace at 41 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, inherited from his father Baron Edmond James, and the Chateau Rothschild in Armainvilliers (Seine-et- Marne)

  • Miriam Caroline Alexandrine de Rothschild (1884-1965)

married Albert von Goldschmidt-Rothschild (1879–1941) from Frankfurt in 1910, whose mother was Baroness Minna Caroline von Rothschild (* 1857), the younger sister of her mother Adelheid "Ada" von Rothschild. This marriage ended in divorce in 1919. Her ex-husband was married to the Swiss banker's daughter Marie Helene Schuster-Burckhardt (* 1902) for the second time since 1922. The Nazis confiscated his property in 1935, including his inherited Palais Grüneburg along with a park and valuable furniture. He, his wife and children went into exile in 1938. His aged father Maximillian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, the former father-in-law of Miriam Caroline de Rothschild, was one of the wealthiest men in the German Empire before the First World War. He died at the age of 97 persecuted and humiliated as a tenant in a small apartment in his confiscated city palace in Frankfurt am Main. Her ex-husband Baron Albert von Goldschmidt-Rothschild committed suicide in 1941 in Lausanne, almost penniless. Miriam inherited from her father the Chateau Rothschild in Boulogne-sur-Seine, located on the outskirts of Paris, along with a huge park and a city palace on Parisian Avenue de Foch. Severely damaged by the occupation by Germans and Americans during and after World War II, Chateau Rothschild in Boulogne-sur-Seine was sold to a Saudi prince after her death in the 1970s. The park passed into state ownership and is and has been continuously reduced in size through new urban planning and development. Little of the historical remains of the originally famous garden or park.

Live and act

Religion always retained its place in the life of the Baroness, with a positive influence on her husband, Baron Edmond James, with whom they shared 57 years of marriage and three children. A component of Adelheid's view of religion was always charity, as her parents had exemplified. France, Germany, Palestine: she left her charitable mark everywhere, together with Edmond, but also alone. Be it a hospital in Palestine, the allocation of funds to charitable and cultural institutions in their hometown of Frankfurt or in Paris. Museums, libraries, scientists, artists, hospitals and orphanages, they all benefited from the Baroness' will to do good. Against this background, it is not surprising that she followed the idea of ​​a Frankfurt foundation adviser and made two million Reichsmarks available in 1903 to establish a lung hospital in Nordrach .

Honorary burial place

After the death of Baron Edmond de Rothschild in the chateau in Boulogne-sur Seine, his wife Baroness Adelheid "Ada" de Rothschild died a short time later. Both were first buried in Paris in the Père Lachaise cemetery. In April 1954 they were exhumed there and transported to Israel on a military frigate. In Haifa , the ship was greeted by sirens and whistles. According to their wishes, they found eternal rest in Ramat Hanadiv Memorial Gardens near Zikhron Ya'akob not far from Haifa. In Israel, the inscription on her tombstone reads "... a woman who prayed to God".

Individual notes

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://geneall.net/de/ancestors/124496/marie-helene-schuster-burckhardt/
personal data
SURNAME Rothschild, Adelheid von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothschild, Adelheid de; Rothschild, Ada von (nickname); Rothschild, Adélaïde de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1935
Place of death Paris