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68

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Hitler Connection

J. Henry Schroder Banking Company is listed as Number 2 in 

capitalization in Capital City62 on the list of the seventeen merchant 

bankers who make up the exclusive Accepting Houses Committee in 

London. Although it is almost unknown in the United States, it has 

played a large part in our history. Like the others on this list, it had first to 

be approved by the Bank of England. And, like the Warburg family, the 

von Schroders began their banking operations in Hamburg, Germany. 

At the turn of the century, in 1900, Baron Bruno von Schroder 

established the London branch of the firm. He was soon joined by 

Frank Cyril Tiarks, in 1902. Tiarks married Emma Franziska of Hamburg, 

and was a director of the Bank of England from 1912 to 1945.

During World War I, J. Henry Schroder Banking Company played an 

important role behind the scenes. No historian has a reasonable 

explanation of how World War I started. Archduke Ferdinand was 

assassinated at Sarajevo by Gavril Princeps, Austria demanded an 

apology from Serbia, and Serbia sent the note of apology. Despite this, 

Austria declared war, and soon the other nations of Europe joined the 

fray. Once the war had gotten started, it was found that it wasn’t easy 

to keep it going. The principal problem was that Germany was 

desperately short of food and coal, and without Germany, the war 

could not go on. John Hamill in The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover63 

explains how the problem was solved.* He quotes from Nordeutsche