The Jews in America Trilogy

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The Jews in America Trilogy Page 24

by Birmingham, Stephen;


  There are Warburgs today in every corner of the world—from New York to London to Shanghai to Tokyo to Melbourne. One family habit, which helps keep the Warburgs straight in various parts of the globe, is to give Warburg children first names appropriate to the countries where they were born. Thus Elena, Oliviero, Gioconda, Francesca, and Italo Warburg are all Rome Warburgs. Eva and Charlotte Warburg, who became Israeli Warburgs, have children named Dvorah, Gabriel, Benjamin, Tama, and Niva. Ingrid is a Stockholm Warburg. When Renata Warburg was married to Dr. Richard Samson, she tried hard to conform to his mystic Indian cult of Mazdasnan and lived for a while with the Maharaja of Indore. Their child, Matanya, is therefore a Zoroastrian Warburg, or at least a Warburg from his mother’s maharaja period. She later divorced Samson, left India, married a man named Walter Strauss, moved to Glasgow, and named her next child Carol.

  Felix Warburg, who, Frieda Schiff had been told, was the handsomest man in town, was the son of Moritz Warburg, and Moritz Warburg was the youngest of six children of Abraham and Sara Warburg. Abraham Warburg died when Moritz was very young, but Sara Warburg, one of several strong-willed Warburg women, remained very much alive. Moritz’s older brother Siegmund became titular head of the bank after his father’s death, but as long as Sara lived Siegmund and Moritz had to report to their mother each evening after the Stock Exchange had closed. They brought their account books with them, and Sara grilled them thoroughly on each detail of each transaction. The two men’s wives waited patiently at home until Sara was satisfied that the boys had put in a profitable day at the bank and dismissed them with a little wave of her hand. If Sara was not satisfied, she would sit very still in her thronelike chair, gazing at her sons hard and long. Then she would say, “Now. Explain yourselves. Siegmund, speak first.” On such nights, the lights in Sara’s big house in Rothenbaum Chaussee burned late.

  Sara was widely respected by men because she “thought like a man,” and she had many influential men friends, among them the poet Heinrich Heine,* who once dedicated a poem to her (and it was not a poem about banking, either), and Prince Otto von Bismarck. Like her spiritual sister, Henriette Hellman Seligman in the United States, Sara was not a woman to be put off by royalty. She and the Prince corresponded regularly, and each year it was her custom to send him a package of Passover cookies. But one year the imperial court chaplain preached some anti-Semitic statements which incensed Sara. Bismarck was not really responsible for them, but he did not reproach the chaplain, and Sara decided that her friendship with the Prince should be terminated. At Easter, when the Prince had not received his customary cookies, he sent an aide to see Sara and ask what had happened. Sara told the Prince’s emissary loftily, “If he doesn’t know, tell him to come and ask me himself. But he won’t ask. He knows quite well why he didn’t get his cookies.” He never did ask, and he never received any cookies from Sara again.

  Sara’s son Moritz married Charlotte Oppenheim, and they had seven children—Aby M., Max M., Paul M., Felix M., Olga M., Fritz M., and Louise M. Warburg. Felix Warburg used to sign his letters:

  because he saw the Warburgs represented in the heavens, with each of the Warburg children a star in the Big Dipper. This Warburg family lived at Mittelweg 17 and were known as “the Mittelweg Warburgs” to distinguish them from Siegmund Warburg’s family, who lived on Alsterufer and were called “the Alsterufer Warburgs.” To confuse things somewhat, both Siegmund and Moritz had sons named Aby, after their joint grandfather. But, to unconfuse them somewhat, the Mittelweg Aby—and all the other Mittelweg Warburgs—had the middle initial “M,” which was not for “Mittelweg,” but for Moritz, their father. Still, all those M’s helped keep the Mittelweg Warburgs straight. Meanwhile, the Alsterufer Warburgs gave their children the middle initial “S,” for Siegmund. This tradition has been carried on in both branches of the family.

  Felix’s mother, Charlotte, was like her mother-in-law Sara, a strong-minded woman who openly dominated her timid little husband, who, by the time she met him, was already used to being cowed. Charlotte also took pride in herself as a matchmaker, and was forever inviting young couples to dinner, where her practice was to send them out for walks in the twilight afterward, and then lock the French windows behind them. She would not let any of her “matches” back inside the house until, as she put it, “it” had happened.

  Felix’s father, Moritz, was the official leader of the sixteen thousand Jews in Hamburg. He thoroughly disapproved of the migratory wave of young Jews out of Germany in the 1850’s, ’60’s, and ’70’s. For one thing, M. M. Warburg & Company was prospering, and he saw no need for any of his sons to “seek their fortune” in any such distant place as the United States. Also, as one of the family wrote of him, Moritz was a man “not distinguished by great physical courage.” The thought of himself or any member of his family crossing the Atlantic terrified him. “Das Wasser hat keine Balken,” he used to say—“Water isn’t very solid”—and once, when his mother ordered him to England on business, he begged her not to make him go. But Sara insisted, and Moritz crossed the Channel on his knees, praying all the way. When required to serve in the Hamburg City Militia, Moritz enlisted as a trumpeter. His wife, either proudly or mischievously, used to show the certificate he got for this service to everyone who came to the house. Moritz was also vain, and covered his baldness with wigs of varying lengths.

  The Warburg children were, on the other hand, a bold, bright, and lively lot. Felix and his brothers were strikingly handsome youngsters, dark-haired with snapping black eyes. There is some argument today about “the Warburg mouth,” which is said not to have been “good” where the boys were concerned. But the boys, as soon as they were able, wore the heavy mustaches that were the style of the period, so their mouths didn’t matter. Felix, like his name, had a happy face, and his mustache curled upward. His brother Paul had a sad face, and his mustache turned down. Paul was a scholar. Felix was a blade. He loved beautiful things—beautiful women, music, books, paintings, horses, sailboats, clothes, and (in time) motorcars. He was also something of a rebel. He openly scorned the conventional Jewish orthodoxy of his home, which he used to say was “maintained more from tradition than from conviction.” He was embarrassed by such rules as having to have a servant carry his textbooks to school for Saturday sessions, and having to adhere to the dietary laws whenever he went to a restaurant or traveled. He itched to go places and become his own man.

  His oldest brother, Aby, was a rebel too. He had married a girl named Mary Hertz, described in the family as “an unusual girl”—unusual in that she was not Jewish. It was the first Warburg mixed marriage, and it stirred up such a storm that the couple were asked, “out of respect to the Jewish community of Hamburg,” to leave the city to wed.

  At sixteen Felix was taken out of school and sent south to Frankfurt to work for his mother’s family, the Oppenheims, who had a precious-stone business there. His brother Max was already in Frankfurt, studying business, and the boys’ mother wrote to Max telling him to take good care of Felix, and see that he took “language and violin lessons, select nice friends for him, prevent him from being too extravagant, and see to it that he takes one bath weekly.” But Felix could take care of himself. He was already a bon vivant, and he cut quite a swathe in Frankfurt. In his snappy dogcart he drove his young friends and his Italian teacher (he had selected a very pretty young woman to teach him that language) on gay excursions to the Waeldchen, Frankfurt’s prettiest park. In Frankfurt he met Clara Schumann, the widow of Robert Schumann the composer, and Mme. Schumann developed quite a case on Felix Warburg. This raised an eyebrow or two. He was just eighteen; she was nearly seventy.

  Felix Warburg very nearly didn’t go to the Dreyfuses’ party. The Dreyfuses, he said, gave “the dullest parties in Frankfurt,” and he was not a man who liked dull parties. But his parents, who were visiting in Frankfurt, insisted because their old friend Jacob Schiff would be there, and they reminded Felix that Schiff had given the Warburg boys a toy fort d
uring the period he had worked for the Deutsche Bank.

  So, reluctantly, Felix went, and met Frieda Schiff, who was wearing the pale pink gown Zorn had painted her in. “I don’t think I flirted,” she said many years later, “because I had been brought up so strictly, and had gone out so little, that I was not too certain of myself.”

  That night Felix went home, long after midnight, knocked on his parents’ door, and said, “I have met the girl I’m going to marry.”

  Matchmaker Charlotte was disgruntled because this was a match she had not arranged. Moritz Warburg was even more distressed when he heard that it was an American girl. Sitting up in his bed in his nightshirt and cap, he cried, “She will have to live in Germany, you know!”

  *Heine also turns up in the Schiff family tree; his stepgrandfather was a Schiff.

  25

  MARRIAGE, SCHIFF STYLE

  The morning after Felix’s announcement, Moritz Warburg paid a call on the Schiffs. The meeting did not go well. Mr. Warburg stalked out of the Schiffs’ suite wearing a face of stone, and Jacob Schiff calmly announced that the family was moving on to Paris.

  In Paris the Schiffs went to the races at Longchamp, and who should suddenly show up there but Felix Warburg, who had followed them from Frankfurt. He presented himself to the Schiff party, and stayed very close to Frieda while her father became increasingly agitated. At the end of the afternoon he told Frieda flatly that she was not permitted to see Felix again. “I took her to Europe to get her out of the way of temptation,” he roared, “and now this happens!”

  In addition to his wish to preserve Frieda’s “innocence,” there were several things that Jacob disliked about Felix Warburg. For one, Felix wasn’t a banker. Though New York firms practiced nepotism extensively, there was a rule at the Warburg bank to prevent, or at least control, it: no more than two sons of a senior partner could enter the firm. Since Felix’s older brothers, Max and Paul, were already in the bank, Felix could never work for M. M. Warburg & Company. If Frieda wished to marry a Warburg, Jacob said, why didn’t she marry Paul or Max? But in any case Jacob would never permit her to marry a man who would make her live in Germany. Behind these illogical arguments there hung the fact that Schiff distrusted Felix’s manner. Felix was witty and lively, and Schiff was uncomfortable when faced with anything as intangible as bounce. He did not like jokes; bon vivants alarmed him. Felix’s nickname was “Fizzie,” after the Vichy Celestin “fizzie water” he loved to drink, but “fizzie” also described his personality. There was a slight cleft in Felix’s chin which Schiff saw as a sign of weakness of character. The real truth, however, was that he didn’t want his daughter to marry anyone.

  When the Schiffs arrived at Gastein, Felix Warburg turned up again. While Jacob was taking the waters one afternoon, Frieda and Felix met secretly in the park. They walked for a while, and then he stopped her under a plane tree and said, “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” “Yes,” said Frieda. “This is a beautiful place,” he said. “Yes,” she agreed. “Would you ever like to live in Germany?” he asked her. Frieda was terrified. She ran home to her mother and gasped, “I think he proposed!”

  Immediately, a council of war was called and an elaborate set of plans was developed. It was decided that the Schiff and Warburg families should have a summit conference on the matter, and on neutral territory. Ostend on the Belgian coast was selected. First, a formal dinner was given by the Warburgs at their favorite kosher restaurant. That went reasonably well (Schiff was a great believer in the power of formal dinners to solve most problems). Next, Mr. Schiff gave a luncheon for the Warburgs at his hotel. The headwaiter suggested fresh Channel lobsters, which were nonkosher. Schiff ordered filet of sole. But somehow a mistake was made and the lobsters were served anyway, and Mr. Schiff flew into one of his towering rages. The lunch was a disaster.

  A tactic was at last agreed upon, however, which, though not very entertaining for the two young people, assured them of remaining in some sort of communication. Frieda and her family would return to New York, and there, her father explained, Felix would write a weekly letter to Schiff, who would respond with a weekly letter to Felix. Frieda was to institute a similar schedule of letters between herself and Felix’s mother. Frieda and Felix were under no circumstances to write each other. This program was to continue until such time as Felix was able to come to New York. The two young people parted without so much as a farewell kiss.

  In New York, the letter-writing began. Sometimes her father showed Frieda his letters to Felix before posting them. Written in German, they used the formal “Sie,” a form reserved for use when speaking to one or more persons with whom one is not on familiar terms. But once Frieda noticed that her father had as last written to Felix using “Du,” the familiar form. She was overjoyed and hugged and thanked her father for unbending this much. Without a word, Jacob Schiff took out his gold penknife, scratched out every “Du,” and substituted “Sie” throughout. It was a letter, furthermore, inviting Felix to join Kuhn, Loeb & Company in New York.

  Felix Warburg did not particularly want to work for Jacob Schiff. He was never to become a great financier (though he did possess other talents which, in time, became very useful to Schiff). But he did love Frieda, and Schiff had set an unalterable condition: Felix could not have Frieda unless he took, in the bargain, Kuhn, Loeb. As Felix was preparing to leave Germany for New York, his father called him aside and said, “My son, I have just one request to make of you.” Felix was certain that his father was about to make him promise to bring his young wife back to Germany or, at the very least, to ask him to keep the dietary laws. But his father said, “Do not take the iced drinks that spoil Americans’ digestions and force them to go to Carlsbad for a cure.” Felix arrived in New York in 1895, and immediately went to work.

  Schiff’s attitude toward his future son-in-law did not soften much during the “courtship” period that followed. He arranged things so that the young couple saw almost nothing of each other. When they did meet, they were heavily chaperoned. His concern for Frieda’s innocence continued, and he enjoined both her mother and her grandmother from mentioning “ugly” truths.

  Therese Schiff obeyed her husband, but Grandmother Betty Loeb had her own ideas. She had become interested in nursing and obstetrics, and was getting a reputation as an “advanced” woman. Betty even read the novels of Zola openly! On her book shelves behind locked glass doors were books dealing with the physical side of marriage, and she was determined to have a talk with Frieda. But Jacob got wind of this, and refused to let Frieda see her grandmother unless there was a third person present. Betty Loeb did manage to get Frieda alone one afternoon and to say to her, “It’s normal for a girl to be upset and nervous at a time like this. Being engaged is unnatural. A girl should either be not engaged at all or married.” It was some help, but not much.

  The dashing young man about to carry off their loveliest young princess was referred to by German Jewish society as “The Black Prince.” As the day of the ceremony approached, tensions in the Schiff household mounted. It was to be an at-home wedding at 932 Fifth, and, adding to the other complications, was the caterer’s news that no more than 125 guests could be fitted into the house, and, a week before the wedding, 145 had accepted. Jacob Schiff struck a seerlike pose and announced, “Twenty will not come.” Later, Frieda Schiff Warburg wrote: “As always his forecast was right. Two days before the ceremony, Mrs. James Seligman died, and her entire family, numbering exactly twenty, couldn’t come.”*

  Frieda Schiff’s and Felix Warburg’s marriage was called “dynastic,” and it did seem to represent a consolidation of Kuhn, Loeb power. There they all were—old Solomon Loeb, who had founded the firm but had withdrawn altogether a few years earlier in favor of his son-in-law, the father of the bride. There was Solomon’s old partner, Abraham Wolff, whose daughter Addie was a bridesmaid and who—in another Kuhn, Loeb wedding—would very soon marry another partner, Otto Kahn. There was Solomon’s son Morris, not a banker b
ut married that same year to Abe Kuhn’s daughter, Eda, another bridesmaid. The bride’s aunt, Nina Loeb, was maid of honor, and Paul Warburg had come from Germany to be his brother’s best man. These two met for the first time at the wedding and fell in love, which would give Solomon another son-in-law in the firm, which would make Nina her niece’s sister-in-law and make Paul Warburg his brother’s uncle.

  Since the Schiffs belonged to two congregations, Temple Emanu-El and Beth-El, two rabbis performed the ceremony—Dr. Gustav Gottheil and Dr. Kaufmann Kohler. It was a glittering occasion, but the business overtones of the union almost overshadowed the happiness of the newlyweds. While the women speculated about the suitability of Felix as a husband, the men considered his promise as a partner. But the most historically significant fact was that Frieda Schiff had achieved her first victory over her father, and had managed to marry the man she loved.

  From the house the couple went to the Plaza, where Felix, in his nervousness, forgot to register his bride. From there, they went on a short trip to Washington, where Frieda, in her nervousness, realized that she was without a personal maid for the first time in her life. Faced with the problem of packing suitcases and not knowing how to begin, she burst into tears and Felix had to help her, wrestling manfully with unfamiliar crinolines. They returned to New York long enough to board the S.S. Kaiser Wilhelm II for a cruise to Italy, but this time Jacob Schiff assigned one of his wife’s personal maids, Hermine, to accompany Frieda. Hermine proved to be quite a trial. Felix Warburg used to say, “I spent my honeymoon with a German governess.” Hermine would not let Frieda wear any of her trousseau on the boat so that the dresses would be fresh for Italy, where the senior Warburgs were to meet them, and she scolded Frieda whenever she got a spot on any of her other dresses. Also, possibly acting on instructions from Jacob Schiff, she was reluctant to let the newlyweds spend any private moments together. She was forever fussing around the stateroom and seemed miffed that she had not been given an adjoining cabin. Still, Frieda and Felix managed to find some time together. Frieda Warburg became pregnant with her first child on her honeymoon, just as her mother had done.

 

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