Ludwig Bamberger, the Jew who was one of the founders of the Liberal movement in Germany, was the secret adviser of the Emperor Frederick III and it was he who established the connections between the Emperor and the Liberals in the opposition to Bismark and the Junker reactionaries, Dr. Ernst Feder revealed to-day in a lecture delivered at the Democratic Club here in connection with the celebrations on the occasion of the Emperor’s centenary.
Dr. Feder made his disclosures on the basis of diaries kept by Bamberger which have never yet been published showing what an important part, hitherto unsuspected, Bamberger had played behind the scene in the struggle between the short-reigned Emperor on whom the Liberals of Germany had fixed their hope, and the reactionary forces of the country, until he died and was succeeded by his son, the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Ludwig Bamberger, who was born in July 1823 and died in 1899, took a prominent part in the revolutionary movement of 1848, and in the insurrection of 1849. When the rising was put down he was condemned to death, but managed to escape to Switzerland and afterwards to England. Finally, he settled in Paris, where he became manager of the big banking firm of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt. When the amnesty was granted to political offenders in Germany in 1866, he returned to Mayence and was elected to Parliament. When the Franco-Frussian war broke out in 1870 his reputation as a writer on political and economic subjects and his familiarity with conditions in France induced Prince Bismark to entrust to him the management of a considerable part of the political campaign in the interests of his national policy. In 1871 Bamberger was elected to the first German Reichstag, where he was one of the leaders of the National Liberal Party. He exercised great influence on financial and economic legislation, especially in giving support to the maintenance of the gold standard. He was an enthusiastic champion of free trade and was President of the German Free Trade Association. An opponent of the Socialists, he was also opposed to Bismark’s protectionist policy inaugurated in 1879 for accomplishing the economic unification of Germany, which brought him into conflict with the majority of the National Liberal Party. In 1880 he broke away from the Party and with a number of his followers formed the Liberal Federation, which fused with the German Liberal Party in 1884. As one of the leaders of the Party, Bamberger bitterly opposed Bismark’s administration and policy.
He wrote a great number of books on economic and political questions, and also a book on “Germany and Judaism”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
