by Ron Chernow
The amazingly homely family of Sara and Aby Warburg. The swarthy boy to Sara’s left is Siegmund, while her pampered favorite, Moritz, leans close to her.
(Private collection of E. G. Lachman)
Sara’s house at Rothenbaumchaussee 49, where she closely quizzed Siegmund and Moritz each night. (Private collection of E. G. Lachman)
A careworn Siegmund Warburg, who bore the weight of the bank from his early years.
(Courtesy of Elsbeth Oppenheimer)
Siegmund’s fashionable wife, Théophilie Warburg, known locally as “Théophilie with the Sour Face.”
(Courtesy of Elsbeth Oppenheimer)
Alsterufer 18, home of the first Siegmund and Aby S. Warburg.
(Private collection of E. G. Lachman)
A lyrical, melancholy view of the Alster Lake from the Alsterufer 18 mansion.
(Private collection of E. G. Lachman)
Charlotte Warburg often smiled in early photos before her daughter, Olga, committed suicide. (Courtesy of Alice C. Auerbach)
Moritz Warburg, probably wearing the toupee that showed him with freshly cut hair. (Courtesy of Alice C. Auerbach)
Five Warburg children with their beloved governess, Franziska Jahns. From left: Felix, Max, Olga, Paul, and Aby. (Warburg family, Hamburg)
Jacob Schiff and his doting, solicitous wife, Thérese.
(Courtesy of Carol Rothschild Noyes)
Jacob Schiff with a curious, alert Bettina Warburg.
(Courtesy of Katharine Weber)
A companion photo to the family men pictured at the beginning of chapter four. From left: Frieda Warburg, Betty Loeb, Thérese Schiff, and Carola Warburg as a baby.
(Courtesy of Phyllis R. Farley)
An uncharacteristically subdued Felix Warburg with Frieda and three children, from left: Carola, Frederick, and Gerald. (Warburg family. Hamburg)
The main house at Woodlands. (From the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward M. M. Warburg)
Morte with four of his sons, taken before his death in 1910. From left: Paul, Aby, Max, with Felix standing. Notice Aby’s easy air of dominance. (Private collection of E. C. Lachman)
Always incorrigible clowns, the “Famous Five” sons kneel in mock adoration before Charlotte and Moritz Warburg. (Warburg family. Hamburg)
Nina Warburg with daughter Bettina.
(Courtesy of Katharine Weber)
Jimmy Warburg, looking every inch the young genius, and sister Bettina as teenagers. (Courtesy of Katharine Weber)
Picnic scene: Paul in shirtsleeves in middle, Nina in hat on right, her brother Jim Loeb on his knees, Bettina in foreground, Jimmy faintly poking up in rear.
(Courtesy of Katharine Weber)
This rare photo shows an urbane Aby, looking like a banker, and an earthy Max, looking like a seaman.
(Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
A dusky Aby, age thirteen, stands out among his blond classmates with his coloring and amused expression.
(Warburg family, Hamburg)
Aby, at right, perched on his steed in his regiment. Because of his tiny stature, he had trouble mounting the tall horses. (Warburg family. Hamburg)
One summer vacation in Denmark, Mary and Aby created a book of ABCs, with drawings by Mary. Here, Aby kicks up his heels in a hilarious pose.
This drawing of Aby and Max illustrates the letter V and says, loosely, “The bird nests are too far away for the care of the worried fathers.”
This drawing for the letter Y says, “Uncle Aby angrily sees his Mary swimming far out.”
(All three drawings, courtesy of Frede and Adolf Prag)
Mary Warburg and her three children about the time that Aby left the Swiss asylum. The terrible strain of those years is written in Mary’s face. (Maria Christina Warburg [Mills])
Marietta and her husband, Peter Braden, who spent World War II inside Nazi Germany. (Maria Christina Warburg [Mills])
The famous reading room at the Warburg library, whose elliptical shape held mystic meanings for Aby.
(Warburg Institute)
From a platform at lower left, Aby Warburg salutes construction workers during topping-out ceremony of the Warburg library, October 1, 1925.
(Warburg Institute)
Exterior of Warburg library, 1926. One can discern the letters KBW—Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg—above the ground-floor windows.
(Warburg Institute)
Gertrud Bing, Aby Warburg, and Franz Alber in Abys hotel suite in Rome. 1929. At the night one can make out collage panels for his projected picture atlas. Mnemosyne. (Warburg Institute)
A crestfallen Aby Warburg after emerging from the asylum, circa 1925.
(Warburg Institute)
Lushly abundant archway at Kösterberg, with hanging ferns. (Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
An opulent stairway leading down to the open-air theater at Kösterberg.
(Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
Anita Warburg stars in a play by the Hindu writer, Tagore, at the open-air theater of Kösterberg. Three professional directors helped with these amateur theatricals. (Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
The grassy bleachers in the open-air theater seated up to 250 guests who afterward danced alfresco in the adjoining Roman Garden. (Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
The four daughters of Max and Alice Warburg. From left: Gisela, Lola, Anita, and Renate.
(Courtesy of Anita Warburg)
Lola Hahn-Warburg with Benita on lap and Oscar by her side, 1927.
(Courtesy of Lucie Kaye)
After facing the loyalty issue in Washington, Paul steered away from Zionism and mostly avoided Jewish organizations. When the German-born sociologist Arthur Ruppin tried to convert him to the cause in 1923, Paul replied testily: “Even if you were right in your explanations about the importance of Palestine and the destiny of the Jews, I couldn’t join you, because as an American I don’t want to be convinced by you.”32
Felix was the most excited about Palestine. To some extent, he approached the subject as a banker searching for sound, prudent investments and demanded studies to gauge how many settlers could be absorbed economically. In January 1923, he wrote breathlessly that the “pioneer stock … is going to make Palestine into a second California … perhaps.”33 In time, Palestine would also kindle his imagination as a possible incubator for a Jewish cultural Renaissance. Outright statehood would remain another matter.
When Chaim Weizmann arrived in New York in spring 1923, he believed only two men could break down the resistance of wealthy, assimilated American Jews to Zionism: lawyer Louis Marshall, head of the American Jewish Committee, and Felix. Perhaps no fund-raiser has stalked a donor more assiduously than Weizmann did Felix. When he got a surprise luncheon invitation to 52 William Street, Weizmann at once accepted. (Vera saw it as a snub that he wasn’t invited to 1109 Fifth.) “Enthroned in one of the more palatial rooms of that palatial building, I found an extremely affable and charming gentleman, very much the grand seigneur, but all kindness,” recalled Weizmann.34
Felix made an extended speech about money being squandered in Palestine. For every dollar raised in America, he said, only one penny ended up in the Mideast. Weizmann stared at him flabbergasted. “A more fantastic rigmarole, I have, to be honest, never heard from a responsible quarter: bolshevism, immorality, waste of money, inaction, inefficiency, all of it based on nothing more than hearsay.”35 Bursting with impatience, Weizmann turned the tables. “What if things were the other way round?” he asked Felix. “Suppose I came to you with a collection of all the tittle-tattle and backstairs gossip that circulates, I have no doubt, about Kuhn, Loeb and Company? What would you do?”36 Felix answered, “I should probably ask you to leave.” Weizmann replied, “I can hardly ask you to leave, for I am your guest.”37 To get over this bramble patch, Felix offered to contribute ten thousand dollars to Palestinian development, but Weizmann wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily. The only way to make amends, he insisted, was for Felix to see Palestine with his own eye
s. To Weizmann’s amazement, Felix replied, “Your suggestion is the right one. I will talk it over with my wife, and if possible go to Palestine at once.”38
Felix retained grave reservations about Zionism, preferring to earmark money for specific Palestine projects and avoid the maelstrom of Zionist politics. He already worried about what he saw as a bellicose, arrogant tone that Zionists adopted in dealing with the Arab question. And conditioned by the genteel charity world, he couldn’t abide the bitter, often vituperative partisanship of Zionist politicians, who frequently dispensed with the amenities.
Nevertheless, as his American tour ended, Weizmann bubbled with enthusiasm. American Jews had opened their checkbooks, he told Vera, and for the first time in Zionist history the deficits had vanished. Ecstatic over the American funds, Weizmann said that Zionists in the near future would have all “the millions that are required for the setting up of Palestine.… All the Jews, beginning with Marshall and Warburg and down to the East End, talk about nothing else but the height to which the matter has been raised.…”39 When Felix telephoned on the eve of his departure to congratulate him on his triumphant journey, Weizmann was delighted. He rated his conquest of Felix, Marshall, et al. as the financial equivalent of the Balfour Declaration.40
Felix and Weizmann would go through countless cycles of enthusiasm and recriminations. For all his conviviality, Felix could be temperamental. When presented with a disagreeable thought, he would turn bright red and exclaim “Nonsense!”41 But he and Weizmann were always held by a strong social bond that included their wives. After his exhausting trips to small-town America, the sophisticated Weizmann enjoyed repairing to the stately comfort of 1109 Fifth Avenue or Woodlands. He found many American Zionists dull and unsociable while the Warburgs were always scintillating company.42 Weizmann’s spellbinding power over women included Frieda. As Vera later wrote, “My husband liked beautiful women, but they had to have brains as well, which she had in abundance.”43 Frieda said of Weizmann’s first lunch at 1109, “I had not felt warmly toward Dr. Weizmann up to that time, but he came and, like Caesar, he conquered me at once.”44 Frieda was a woman of strong and definite views, and her budding enthusiasm for Palestine swayed Felix.
When they visited Palestine, Weizmann hovered in the background, leaving nothing to chance. He forewarned the Warburgs’ Zionist host, British Lieutenant Colonel Frederick H. Kisch, that if Felix were impressed by Palestine “he would be ready to be very helpful, and his help means a great deal.”45 Another resident worked his magic: Rabbi Judah Magnes. The former rabbi of New York’s Temple Emanu-El, a handsome man with deeply burnished skin, was a great baseball fan and long-standing Warburg intimate. He had officiated over Carola’s wedding and Freddy’s and Jimmy’s bar mitzvahs. Despite Felix’s personal support, Magnes’s wartime pacifism and radical sympathies for the Bolshevik Revolution had strained his relations with the German-Jewish elders. In the early 1920s, he had relocated to Palestine with his family. An exponent of Arab-Jewish reconciliation, Magnes guided Felix and Frieda around Palestine and would profoundly shape their views about its future.
As Weizmann predicted, the Warburgs were enthralled. Where Felix had expected wretched people looking for handouts, he encountered proud, doughty settlers. On his first morning, an elderly farmer approached and gave him the year’s first fruits and vegetables. “I was delighted,” Felix said. “My first contact with Palestine convinced me that the attitude I had previously held was wrong.”46 One wonders to what extent Weizmann orchestrated these scenes as the trip moved through a succession of poetically staged vignettes. The Warburgs approached Jerusalem amid a glowing sunset. The next day, they visited Mount Scopus and saw the beginning of the Hebrew University, which would become a favorite charity. As they stared at the Dead Sea, Nazareth, and the Valley of the Jordan, Magnes conjured up the university that would soon rise on the Scopus ridge. When the Warburgs visited a stone quarry, they talked to Russian Jews who seemed ablaze with a sense of mission. “Their eyes sparkled with fire, knowing that some of the stones on which they worked would be part of the Einstein Institute,” said Felix.47
By the end, the two Fifth Avenue sophisticates had fallen completely under the enchantment of the arid, ancient country. “You probably think I am foolish,” Frieda told Felix, “but I want to own some of this soil.” They bought an orange grove and gave Magnes a five-hundred-thousand-dollar check for an Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University.48 This first major endowment permitted the university to open by 1925. Although not converted to Zionism, they were seduced by the idea of a Jewish cultural flowering in the Holy Land. Kisch watched with fascination as Frieda partly shed her father’s prejudice against Zionism. “Mrs. Warburg told me that she and her husband felt themselves a hundred per cent American and could not enter into the spirit of our life, although they were lost in admiration for what they saw around them.”49
The trip was a triumph for Weizmann’s cunning. An elated Felix sent him a postcard, saying, “I have seen what is being done and I feel like throwing myself on the ground and kissing every inch of the soil.”50 When next in New York, Weizmann must have quietly gloated over his success. Of Felix, he said, “I have seldom witnessed a more complete conversion.”51 Yet rather than showing open jubilation, Weizmann reacted with coy circumspection. When Felix asked about this apparent lack of enthusiasm, Weizmann said it would take more than one visit to understand Palestine. “I am sure you will go again, and yet again—and not merely as a tourist; and in the end we shall understand each other.”52 Despite Felix’s ardor, Weizmann knew Palestine now simply ranked as one among his fifty-seven charities and he wanted much, much more.
Felix would serve as a critical intermediary between Zionists and non-Zionists. Under their mandate, the British gave the World Zionist Organization the power to create a Jewish Agency for Palestine. With Felix’s help, Weizmann would enlarge the Jewish Agency to include rich non-Zionists. In 1925, Felix contributed fifty thousand dollars to the Palestine Foundation Fund for agricultural work. He also joined Louis Marshall and Herbert Lehman in setting up the Palestine Economic Corporation to channel investment money into commercial and agricultural projects and Felix became its honorary chairman. For all of Felix’s generosity, however, Weizmann often sounded a peevish, disgruntled note when talking about Felix. “He is full of good intentions,” he said, “but his ‘practical plans’ are usually hopeless. It is true he does not insist on these plans, but it takes a good deal of polite conversation to talk him out of them.”53
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The Hebrew University would be both a shared passion and flash point of controversy between Felix and Weizmann. As early as 1907, Weizmann had selected the Mount Scopus site and already in 1918, with Turkish guns still roaring in the distance, had laid its foundation stones. For Jews excluded from Russian schools and barred from many academic posts in Germany and America, higher education was a priority issue. Academic anti-Semitism was still so pervasive in America that people would say of Jewish candidates, “His only chance in the academic world … was to have Felix Warburg endow a chair for him.”54
The Hebrew University was intended as a repository of Jewish wisdom, a citadel of intellectual respectability. It was a vision that engaged the passions of Felix, Weizmann, Albert Einstein, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and a distant Warburg relative, Professor Otto Warburg. A friend of Theodor Herzl and a famous botanist at the University of Berlin, Otto Warburg had headed the World Zionist Organization. After moving to Palestine, he set up an agricultural research station at Rehovoth. He would head the botanical department of the Hebrew University, donating to it his outstanding collection of tropical plants.
On April 1, 1925, Lord Arthur Balfour presided over the opening ceremonies for the Hebrew University, a moving event in a natural amphitheater. The solemn occasion concealed a furious dispute raging about the university’s direction. That September, the Board of Governors, largely at Felix’s prompting, chose Judah Magnes as chancello
r. Chaim Weizmann became president and Albert Einstein chairman of the Academic Council. The Magnes choice was a clear victory for Felix, who idealistically envisioned the university as a seat of Jewish learning, not as a breeding ground for Zionism. The more hardheaded Weizmann scoffed at this as romantic hog-wash and wanted the university to train doctors and scientists for the coming Jewish state.
Late that year, Felix complained that Weizmann was introducing politics into the university, swamping the Board of Governors with Zionists “to turn the university into an international debating society.”55 Relations between Felix and Weizmann further cooled as the latter faulted the Joint for diverting money to Poland, not Palestine. But every time that Felix lost patience with Weizmann and threatened to cut off donations, Weizmann managed to lure him back into the fold with all the masterful eloquence at his disposal.
In university affairs, Einstein proved an even more formidable foe than Weizmann. He was a frequent guest at 1109 Fifth Avenue and sailed with Felix aboard the Carol. On one voyage, he stared with hypnotic fascination at a table tilted at a strange angle, held by center weights down below. Felix treated Einstein to his own version of relativity: “Everything is relative except relatives, and they, alas, are constant.”56 A cynical critic of the rich grandees of Jewish charity, Einstein heatedly opposed Magnes as chancellor and wanted a distinguished scholar as academic head of the university.
