Germany and the First Age of Globalization

Kaiser Wilhelm II and his sons on parade in Berlin, 1913. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Adolf Jellinek, rabbi of the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna. Jellinek declared that, “the Jews represent the German language, the bearer of culture, education, and science….The freedom of the Jews is at the same time the freedom of German culture.” Rabbi Jellinek was the grandfather of Ramona Mercedes Jellinek, namesake of Daimler’s “Mercedes” automobile. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

The German ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel, the founder of the principle of “Lebensraum” (“living space”). Ratzel stated in 1901 that “without war, inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy, budding elements" of the Germanic race. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

The bronze eagle figurehead of the SS Imperator, flagship of the Hamburg-America Line and the largest ship in the world upon her debut in 1913. Emblazoned on the globe was the slogan “My field is the world.”

More about Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the build up to World War I can be learned in The Last Ships From Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I.