Born London, January 2, 1916. Died Exbury, Hampshire, January 17, 2009, aged 93.
February 12, 2009 12:22In a life apparently characterised by luck, money and a fairy-tale upbringing — A Gilt-Edged Life as he called his 1998 memoir — Edmund de Rothschild preserved a remarkable sense of balance, concern for others, and pride in his Jewish heritage and identity.
A fifth-generation descendant of the Rothschild banking dynasty, he was brought up by nannies on his father’s Hampshire country estates at Inchmery and Exbury with his three siblings.
When his parents came by train for the weekend from their Mayfair home, they brought their French chef, lady’s maid and four footmen.
Eddy, known in adult life as Mr Eddy, discovered antisemitism at prep school. But he enjoyed Harrow, the school his father, Lionel, had attended, and where a rabbi taught the few Jewish pupils.
He was barmitzvah at the Great Synagogue, Duke’s Place, where his father was warden, a position he inherited in the temporary building put up after the synagogue was bombed in 1942.
After gaining a surprisingly respectable degree at Cambridge, he was given a gap-year world tour by his gratified parents, but with strings attached.
He had to be active in the Central British Fund for German Jewry, formed within months of Hitler’s accession to power in 1933. His father, uncle and cousin all helped in the refugee rescue operation. On his travels he was to look out for potential resettlement sites, as the British government was heavily restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine in response to Arab opposition.
He came home to prepare for the imminent Second World War. After officers’ training, he joined the Territorial Army in 1935. But he missed the final training camp in 1939 through illness and remained a lieutenant.
This did not cramp his style. Everywhere he found contacts to secure good food, accommodation and equipment for himself and his men, whose welfare was always close to his heart.
Before being sent to Algeria in 1943 he had to deal with his father’s death in 1942 and subsequent requisitioning of Exbury by the Admiralty.
In 1944 his division was sent to Italy. While waiting for the fourth and final battle of Monte Cassino in May, he heard Gigli sing opera in Naples and took part in a historic Seder night.
His role in the battle was to handle and dispose of ammunition. Other experiences in Italy included a thanksgiving service at Rome’s Lungotevere Cenci synagogue and escorting the Archbishop of Campagna to Rome to see Pope XII, who took the opportunity to speak to a Rothschild.
The Pope appeared “intensely distressed” when told what had happened to Jews in Germany, saying: “We must see this never happens again.”
The family had personal experience when their Viennese cousin, Baron Louis von Rothschild, was imprisoned for a year after the 1938 Anschluss until a vast ransom was paid by the English and French family branches. The Nazis then seized his assets.
At the end of 1944, Edmund de Rothschild applied to join the new Jewish Infantry Brigade Group. Endorsed by Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, he took a battery commander’s course and became a major in charge of men from over 50 countries, in the final push to drive the Germans north out of Italy.
But first they celebrated Pesach with matzah all week and Seder wine supplied from Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s vineyard at Rishon leZion.
They reached Belgium in six days. Germans blinked at the sight of a Magen David painted on the lead truck in the column. As they entered Mannheim through an arch bearing the slogan Judenrein (Jew-free), concentration camp survivors kissed the Magen David.
Encounters at other camps left the Jewish major with an abiding unease at later visiting Germany. The mood in the brigade was also despondent as men searched vainly for relatives.
Demobilised in 1946 and sent to New York to learn banking, he discovered he was not much use at the “nuts and bolts” but very successful at fund-raising for CBF.
He started work as a junior partner of NM Rothschild & Sons in 1947. In 1948 he married Vienna-born Elizabeth Lentner at the New West End Synagogue, with the Chief Rabbi officiating. She had come to England with her family after the Anschluss.
The rest of his busy career — he became senior partner in 1960 and retired in 1975 — showed his devotion to family, work, staff and the fabulous Exbury Gardens started by his father.
With his people skills, he became the diplomatic face of the bank, working for 20 years on Brinco, the huge Canadian hydro-electric project. The experience inspired his plan for a Middle East and Gaza Strip desalination plant. But his dream was rejected at the 1967 Khartoum conference.
He was treasurer of the 1942-founded Council of Christians and Jews for some 30 years before becoming a vice-president in the early 1980s.
In the 1950s he was a hands-on trustee of the Jewish Memorial Council pension fund, looking after communal employees. He was president from 1960 till his death.
Proud of his military record, he was Ajex president from 1959-63 and again from 1968 till his death. He regularly attended the annual Ajex parade.
Two years after his wife’s death in 1980, he married Anne Harrison, widow of an old friend, and travelled with her to his many banking contacts, especially in Japan where his pioneering role in establishing post-war business relations was highly valued.
He is survived by his second wife, the two sons and two daughters of his first marriage, and their six children.