BARON EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD, who has died in Geneva aged 71, controlled an international banking, property and business empire which is said to have made him the richest member of his celebrated family.

A member of the French branch of the Rothschild's and a French citizens Edmond de Rothschild lived for most of his life in the splendid Chateau de Pregny, on the shores of Lake Geneva. He set up private banks in Switzerland, London and Germany, and had extensive interests in financial institutions in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Israel and elsewhere. He was also involved with a number of French companies, notably Hachette and Club Mediterrane, in which he took a 35 per cent stake when it was a company of no consequence. The great advantage of living in Switzerland, he pointed out, is that "they don't nationalise you and they let you invest where you wish."

For many years a part, owner of Chateau Lafite, run by his cousins Elie and Eric de Rothschild, in 1972 Baron Edmond set about establishing his own vineyard at Listrac, in the Medoc - the cru bourgeois Chateau Clarke. With the adjacent estates, of Peyre-Lebade and Malmaison the ensemble now represents the second, largest domaine in the Medoc. producing 800,000 bottles a year. Through the mail-order Savour Club he established, Baron Edmond launched new brands, such as Les Granges des Domains Edmond de Rothschild.

Although Baron Edmond, like others of his family, did not receive a strictly Jewish upbringing, he took a great interest in Israel. "I've -always assumed," he once said, "that a Rothschild must be a Jew first and a capitalist after."

His grandfather, also Baron Edmond, probably did more for the foundation of the Jewish state in Palestine than any Jew of his generation - though he did not think of himself as aa Zionist and opposed Herzl. Known in Israel as Hanadiv (the Benefactor), he set up numerous welfare institutions and several Jewish colonies, including Rishon le Zion and Zichron Yaacov.

During his first visit to Israel in 1958, young Baron -Edmond was advised by David Ben Gurion to use his capital to create jobs rather than to dabble in philanthropy. Within a few years, and with restless energy, constructed an oil pipeline from Elat on the Red Sea to Ashdod on the Mediterranean, set up the Israel General Bank and built a large chemical plant. When his aunt Dorothy, chatelaine of Waddesdon and a generous benefactress of Israel, feared that he might be queering her pitch, he assured her that he was in another line of business.

He was in his bath on June 5 1967 when the Six Day War erupted. He at once telephoned his cousin Alain (Elie's elder brother), then lay-head of French Jewry, and they flew out to Tel Aviv. Soon they were among the first civilians to enter the Old City in Jerusalem after it was taken, and Baron Edmond, a little to his own surprise, found himself praying with tears in his eyes with Ben Gurion at the Wailing Wall. It was not just that Israel meant more to him than he had thought, but it affected him in ways that he had not imagined.

In later years Baron Edmond was not happy with the direction Israel took, and sometimes asked if he could have done anything to avert it. "I'm proud of what we're doing at the hospital and the, institute of molecular biology that my grandfather founded, but in Israel I've let him down. I've achieved nothing," he said. "My relationship with Israel is like a marriage which hasn't lived up to expectations - I'm bitterly disappointed but still emotionally involved."

Edmond Adolphe Maurice Jules Jacques de Rothschild was born on Sept 30 1926, the only son of Baron Maurice de Rothschild, of the French branch of the family. He was a great-grandson Of Baron James de Rothschild, the youngest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, of Frankfurt, four of whose five sons left Germany in the early 19th century to establish banks in London, Paris, Vienna and Naples (the eldest stayed in Frankfurt). James settled in Paris, founding the bank which became de Rothschild Freres. Austro-Hungarian baronies were conferred on the five brothers in 1822.

James's youngest son Edmond had two sons- James (Jimmy), who settled in England, became a Liberal MP and inherited Waddesdon from his cousin Miss Alice de Rothschild, and Maurice, young Baron Edmond's father. Maurice inherited the bulk of his father's fortune, greatly increased it - largely by trading in commodities in New York after the Second World War - and left it to Edmond on his death in 1957.

His parents separated when Edmond was a boy, and he was brought up by his mother Noemi (nee Halphen) between Paris, Geneva and Megeve, the French mountain village which his mother turned into a ski resort. As a child he assumed the Hotel d'Arbois and its ski lift belonged to the hotel manager, since his mother never mentioned that she owned them.

Baron Edmond attended Geneva University and studied law in Paris. Aged 24, with no training in business beyond a brief spell working for Transocean, the import-export company set up by his cousin Guy after the war, Edmond set up on, his own. Three years later he opened his own bank, La Compagnie Financiere, concentrating on activities which did not require heavy initial investment. He provided seed capital for new businesses and for existing, medium-sized ventures.

One of his earliest successes was Club Mditerrane, in which for a time he held a 42 per cent stake. One of his companies ran what became France's leading television weekly, another became the country's leading toy maker. He also extended his mother's hotel and restaurant business, through the holding company Societe Francaise des Hotels de Montagne.

In response to an article in Fortune magazine in 1992, estimating his fortune at more than $1 billion, Baron Edmond allowed that the amount exceeded $500 million. "A Rothschild," he was reported as saying, "who isn't rich, Jewish, a philanthropist, a banker, a hard worker, and who doesn't practise a certain way of life just isn't a Rothschild."

Away from the world of business, Baron Edmond owned racehorses, and was a keen yachtsman, well-known for his series of enormous yawls named Gitana. His Gitana IV, built at Genoa in 1962, and with approximately 9,000 square feet of sails, was at the time the biggest ocean racer built since the war. In the 1965 Fastnet Race she beat the four-year old record by 11 hours.

Besides Château de Pregny, Baron Edmond maintained an estate inherited from his father at Armainvilliers, east of Paris, and a Paris town house on rue de I'Elyse large enough to contain a tropical lake with a 10-ft high waterfall surrounded by fig and banana trees. Baron Manrice's former home in Paris is now the American Embassy.

Baron Edmond married first, in 1958, Georgina "Lina" Blanc. The marriage was short-lived, and he married secondly, in 1963, Nadine Lhopitalier, an actress who, as Nadine Tallier, had appeared in more than 40 films. In recent years Baroness Edmond has written books about etiquette and entertaining, as well as works of romantic fiction. The Baron is survived by his second wife and by their only son Benjamin, born in 1963.

largely by trading in commodities in New York after the Second World War

We have highlighted this particular bit which did not appear in the Jewish Chronicle version, (after all not good PR). The Rothschild's therefore were making a killing on the stock exchange while the Jews were going through their living nightmare in Europe under the Nazi's.

RAPHAEL de Rothschild, scion of one of the world's richest families, has been found dead of a suspected heroin overdose on a pavement in a rundown area of New York.

Mr de Rothschild, who was 23, is believed to have been at a party with friends on 10th Avenue in the city's Chelsea section when he was taken ill.

Police said that after other friends at the party called an ambulance, William Corbin, an executive with an Internet company, helped his friend downstairs to wait outside.

But by the time the ambulance arrived, Mr de Rothschild was dead. A police spokesman said Mr Corbin was arrested and charged with possession of heroin, which he denied.

"I was there on the pavement but that's it," Mr Corbin told the New York Daily News. "That's all I know. I came walking up a little late. I wish I could tell you what happened but, as I told the police, I really don't know."

Living in the same building on Fifth Avenue where Jackie Onassis had her home, Mr de Rothschild was the grandson of Elie de Rothschild, one of the stalwarts of the French side of a financial dynasty that once held the purse strings of Europe.

Elie had a tempestuous relationship with the late Pamela Harriman, ex-wife of Sir Winston Churchill's son Randolph, in the post-war years But rebuffed her entreaties to divorce his wife and marry her.

Mr de Rothschild's father, Nathaniel, is chairman of a European banking business worth 5 billion. Friends said Raphael was bursting with vitality and was a fixture on New York's fashionable social circuit.

In a life of glamorous parties and beautiful girlfriends, he frequented nightspots like Moomba and Harry Cipriani.

Most recently, he had a relationship with Stella Schnabel, daughter of Julian Schnabel, the New York painter and film director.

Confirmation that Mr de Rothschild's death was the result of heroin will await a formal toxicology report but a source said: "We have little doubt that he died of a drug overdose. "

The newspaper quoted friends as saying Mr de Rothschild was "out of control in New York's fast lane". He had been a student at America's best known private schools and then went to the Ivy League Brown University in Rhode Island.

According to Frederic Morton, author of a history of the Rothschild dynasty, the family had never made much impact in American banking circles when compared with their enormous influence in Europe.

"But obviously they are immensely wealthy and the family name is well known in social circles in New York. "

The fact that Raphael's death occurred on April 22 and was not reported in the New York press, which has a close relationship with the police, is testament to the influence of the family.

Mr Morton said: "While they are not exactly reclusive, they do try to keep things private."

THE death of Raphael de Rothschild is the latest in a series of tragedies to afflict the world's greatest banking dynasty, writes Ben Fenton.

Over the centuries since its five "arrows" or branches were set up by the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), a Frankfurt money lender, the family has exerted huge influence over the governments of Europe.

The Rothschilds financed Wellington's campaign in Spain in 1812, provided the gold for Britain to buy its controlling share in the Suez Canal in 1875 and re-established the power of the French government after its crushing defeat by Prussia in 1870.

At times, the Rothschilds have been the richest family in the world, but they have also been one of the most private.

Nobody is quite sure just how wealthy they are today, but their businesses across the world are believed to control billions of pounds.

As so often happens with those whose lives are dominated by vast wealth and the expectations of a dynasty - like the clans Kennedy, Onassis and Niarchos - death and disaster have stalked the Rothschilds too.

In 1923, Charles Rothschild, a scion of the British branch, cut his throat while in the grip of depression.

Charles's grandson Amschel hanged himself in a Paris hotel in 1996.

Raphael de Rothschild is not the first member of his family to have flirted with heroin. Four years ago, his cousin Benjamin was fined 400 for carrying heroin in Southampton airport. The Geneva-based Benjamin was revealed to be a registered addict who had been enrolled in rehabilitation programmes in Paris. The following year he became head of the family's main European banking company.

Pressure to keep a Rothschild name at the forefront of the dynasty's business concerns has been growing because the family is not prolific. From Daily Telegraph 1/May/2000

The Editor is suggesting that the Rothschilds dynasty is worth 5000 billion at a conservative estimate.

Although the Rothschild plan does not match any single political or economic movement since it was enunciate in 1773, vital parts of it can be discerned in all political evolution since that date. LaRouche points out that the Round Tables sponsored Fabian Socialism in England, while backing the Nazi regime through a Round Table member in Germany, Dr Hjalmar Schacht, and that they used the Nazi Government throughout World War II. (The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Mullins page 62. From Bloomfield Books 26 Meadow Lane, Sudbury Suffolk England CO10 6TD ) The English royal House of Windsor has a direct family relationship to the Rothschilds page 60.

The Jews were then scattered all over the world Jer.24:9,10. Including landing in Germany.

Because they were scattered, and obviously wanted a home of there own, they simply became Pawns in a great game. They became the pawns of EDOM. Political Zionists were going to use them for world conquest. The Zionists didn't know whether to collect them all and send them back to Palestine or use them wherever they were in the world.

Because they were scattered and didn't belong wherever they were, they were and are against NATIONALISM unless they were the nationals.

Now let us be perfectly clear about this, the English want England for the English. The Americans want America for the Americans. And so naturally Hitler wanted Germany for the Germans.

"In 1933 there were some 62,000,000 Germans in Germany. Communism (Judaism) the opponents were 510,000 in 1933, according to the World Almanac 1939, were unwilling to lose by compromise any of their position of financial and other power acquired in large degree during the economic collapse of 1923 and appealed for help to person of prominence in the city of new York and elsewhere. Their appeal was not in vain." page 62 (The Iron Curtain over America-The unnecessary War John Beaty Chestnut Mountain Books Barboursville, Virginia USA.)

Mr Untermeyer described the planned Jewish move against Germany as a Holy war--it was to be a world wide Jewish economic boycott of all German goods world wide. --the boycott was effective in six months page 63.

Prime Minister Chamberlain "stated that America and the world Jews had forced England into the war" page 65. Hitler made two appeals to ask Britain and America for peace but these appeals did not become known to the American public for more then ten years. Page 65

As far as Hitler was concerned the Jew began by lending out money at usurious interest, which is a permanent trade of his. So the Jewish Question had to be dealt with. Mein Kampf pages 174-187.

The strictest definition of the term the "wholesale burning of the Jews" (6 million) by Hitler, leaves many people in a state of disbelief. This is because Jewish Authors are now coming out and saying that there are now more survivors than those that were killed. Some of the original House of Judah obviously got killed.

It started about 2500 years ago in Jeremiahs time see the Bible Jer.17:1---

The Present (1982) directors of the Bank of England include Leopold de Rothschild of N.M.Rothschild & Sons, Sir Robert Clark, chairman of Hill Samuel Bank, the most influential bank after Rothschilds, John Clay, of Hambros Bank, and David Scholey, of Warburg Bank, and joint chairman of S.C. Warburg Co. (The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Mullins page 182. From Bloomfield Books 26 Meadow Lane, Sudbury Suffolk England CO10 6TD )

We would like to thank the B.I.W.F. 8 Blades Court, Deodar Road,London SW15 2NU UK for the research they have done and produced in their April-June 2000 Quarterly magazine.

A.Cain