Historical changes in the social relationship between Jews and Christians are an important factor behind the formation of large-scale businesses by religious minority entrepreneurs. Jews in Berlin were politically emancipated in 1869. But they were opposed by anti-Semitic campaigns after the end of the 1870s, and strived to assimilate culturally.
Emil Rathenau, a Jewish entrepreneur in Berlin, was able to found the first telephone office in Berlin in 1881, and the forerunner of AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft), Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität in 1883, thanks to political emancipation. These businesses received most of their capital and executives from Jewish private banks. They were, therefore, managed by Jewish interests. The Jewish bankers on their own, however, could not afford to cover the expanding financial risks which were necessary to make Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität into a company large enough to accommodate the growing demand for electricity in the latter part of the 1880s. They had to find banks which could afford to share their company's financial risk.
AEG was established in 1887 as a company managed by civil interests. The Jewish executives decided to get funds from the credit banks in Berlin, which required that they appoint executives of those banks as executives of AEG. The credit banks which invested in AEG were, in particular, found at the initiative of Ältesten der Kaufmannschaft von Berlin and were funded by both Jewish and Christian capital. These banks were, therefore, managed by civil interests.
This paper shows that large-scale business-building was the primary factor behind Jewish acceptance of the representation of civil interests. This expanding of business was part of the process of Jewish assimilation.
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