The Jews

Abstract

In contrast to the Catholics, the Jews were socially discriminated against in a positive way. By 1900 there were about 600 000 Jews in Germany, roughly one per cent of the population.¹ But about 4 per cent of the Prussian judges were Jews, so were 3 per cent of the higher Prussian bureaucrats, 2.5 per cent of the professors in ordinary, 6 per cent of the physicians, 15 per cent of the barristers, and 37 per cent of the bank owners and bank managers.² Leading liberal politicians such as Ludwig Bamberger and Eduard Lasker were Jews, as was Albert Ballin, director general of the Hapag Lloyd shipping company and intimate companion of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Walter Rathenau, director general of the electric concern AEG, influential adviser to chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and from 1914 head of the raw material department in the Prussian war ministry.