The German Genius

carried down the route.
    Among the dignitaries at the head of the parade was Helmuth von Moltke, carrying the field marshal’s baton he had just been awarded, and Otto von Bismarck, who had been made a prince. Behind him came Germany’s new Kaiser, Wilhelm I, “his erect posture belying his seventy-four years.” More than one rider fainted from the heat but not the Kaiser’s twelve-year-old grandson, also named Wilhelm, who, despite his withered left arm, contemptuously refused to acknowledge a spectator who called out to him as “Wilhelmkin.” 2
    Not everyone agreed that Berlin should be the capital. The Kaiser himself (who was a reluctant emperor) would have preferred Potsdam, seat of Prussia’s greatest king, Friedrich the Great. Non-Prussian Germans disliked Berlin’s eastern orientation, fearing it was no more than a “colonial frontier city on the edges of the Slavic wilderness.” Catholics thought it dangerously Protestant. Theodor Fontane considered it too commercial. 3 “The large city has no time for thinking and, what is worse, no time for happiness.” 4 This ambivalence was reflected in the fact that the Reichstag was not awarded a building of its own until 1894, until then conducting its business in “an abandoned porcelain factory.” 5
    At the time of the victory parade, the city’s population was around 865,000. By 1905, it had passed 2 million, the growth coming mainly through immigration from the east, East Prussia and Silesia. Among the newcomers were many Jews from the Prussian provinces or from eastern Europe. In 1860 Berlin had 18,900 Jews, a figure that rose to 53,900 by 1880. Having been banned in their own countries from owning land or serving in the military, the Ostjuden were experts in commerce, finance, journalism, the arts, and law. The new metropolis was their natural habitat and from 1871 on Berlin became known as “Boomtown on the Spree,” its expansion deriving from three other elements: the abolition of remaining internal tariffs; more liberal rules regarding banks and joint-stock companies; and a sudden infusion of reparations from France, no fewer than 5 billion gold marks. This translated into gold for every man, woman, and child. As David Clay Large puts it, “Imperial Germany was born with a golden spoon in its mouth.”
    This was reflected above all in Berlin. Within two years of unification, 780 new companies were established in Prussia, the country’s greatest banks—the Deutsche, Dresdner, and Darmstädter (the “three Ds”)—were installed there, along with the best of the country’s newspapers. 6 Jews were prominent in this new liberal climate and, besides publishing, they took a full role in the rise of the department store (Wertheim, Tietz, and Israel), the stock market, and banking. After 1871, Jews controlled about 40 percent of all banks in the Reich, compared with a quarter owned exclusively by Christians.
    Notable in this field was Gerson Bleichröder, Bismarck’s personal banker and financial adviser. “Bleichröder’s father, the son of a gravedigger, had managed to become the Berlin agent of the powerful Rothschild banking dynasty, thereby building a potent banking business of his own.” 7 His astute advice made Bismarck “a respectable prince,” and Bleichröder received the first hereditary title awarded to a Jew in the new Reich. (Yet Bismarck told anti-Semitic jokes about Bleichröder behind his back, “as if half-embarrassed by the riches his Privatjude had earned him.”) 8
    There were a number of attempts to make Berlin a rival to Paris or London in regard to its urban amenities. The fashionable residences on Unter den Linden, Berlin’s most famous street, were replaced by shops, restaurants, and hotels. The Kaiser-Gallerie, a glass-covered shopping mall inspired by Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emannuelle opened in 1873, with fifty shops, Viennese-style cafés, and other entertainment facilities. New hotels kept pace, since Berlin was now attracting roughly 30,000 visitors a day, compared to 5,000 before unification. 9
    Circumstances were improving on the surface, but were less impressive beneath it. Berlin did not build a modern sewer system until the 1870s and was notorious for its smell. Only later would Berliner Luft (Berlin air) become a source of pride. Men smoked cigars constantly to avoid tasting the Berlin atmosphere. They also smoked while they ate, and peppered concerts and theatrical performances “with bodily