With no secular education and barely able to speak or write German, Mayer Rothschild (1744-1812) became one of the richest men in Germany. He founded a dynasty of bankers who financed the wars and whims of nobility and governments.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild and Schoenche Rothschild, was born in Frankfurt, Germany on February 23, 1744, the fourth of eight children. His father was a moneychanger and dealer in silk cloth. The family surname was derived from the house where Isaac Elchanan (d. 1585) lived in Frankfurt. At the time, it was a common practice to give names to houses (such as White Tulip, Ship, Green Jar, etc.). Elchanan's house was called zum Roten Schild (at the Red Shield), from which the last name Rothschild came. In 1664, Isaac's grandson Naftali left zum Roten Schild and moved to a house called Hinterpfann, meaning house at the back of...