Fact-Checking Europa: The Last Battle | Part 2

The Rothschilds; the Federal Reserve; the sinking of the Titanic

Read part 1 here.

Watch the documentary in full here.

Researchers estimate the wealth of the Rothschild family at $500 trillion, more than the wealth of the entire world (14:03)

Who are the researchers? This is an incredible claim, but it’s baseless.

The Rothschilds bought Reuters in the 1800s (14:23)

Wrong. The Rothschild bank in London was an early patron of Paul Julius Reuter, the son of a Rabbi who founded Reuters.¹ Paul owned the business until his death in 1899, after which it passed to his son. Today, the majority of Reuters’ stock is owned by the Woodbridge Company, a Canadian investment firm.²

Reuters then bought the Associated Press. (14:29)

Wrong. Reuters never bought out Associated Press. They remain separate entities.

They [The Rothschilds] have controlling interests in three major television networks (14:39)

What networks? We aren’t told, and as this is said an image appears on the screen showing logos of Associated Press and Reuters, which aren’t television networks. I can’t identify any major television networks owned by the Rothschilds.

Until recently the Rothschild family controlled England’s Royal Mint and continue to be the gold agent for the Bank of England (14:46)

It is true that Britain leased out administration of its minting refinery to Anthony de Rothschild, in 1852. This was a time of great colonial expansion for Britain, and:

Operating the refinery immediately put much of the new Australian and California gold production at the disposal of the merchant bank, later securing them a good share of early South African gold.³

Through this expansion, by the 20th Century more than half the world’s commercial gold was being treated by the Rothschild firm:

Rothschild, through its connection to the refinery, gained access to and
control over Empire gold, which in 1914 accounted for 70 per cent. of world output; the majority of which was shipped to London and treated at the Rothschild refinery.⁴

In 1968, the Rothschild group sold the Royal Mint Refinery to Engelhard Industries.⁵

A report by the Bank of England in 1967 listed the Rothschild bank as one of five members of the London gold market — five banking firms allowed to “fix” the price of gold in a position created in 1919 — and reported the Rothschild bank was one of two tasked with processing and refining gold:

Two of the members (Johnson Matthey and Rothschilds) melt. refine, assay and process gold. Rothschilds act as chairman of the market and have done so since the market was constituted in its present form after the First World War. and the daily gold price fixing takes place on their premises.⁶

So Rothschild bank had a more central role than any entity in managing Britain’s gold market. However, the Rothschilds are not currently serving as the “gold agent” of the bank, as Europa claims. In 2004, N.M. Rothschild & Sons withdrew from the gold market, including trading of gold and its role in “fixing” the price of gold with other London banks.⁷

The Rothschilds controls the Bank of England (14:52)

No evidence for this.

The Rothschilds control the London Bullion Market Association allowing them to fix the world’s gold price and earn millions in transaction fees (14:55)

As mentioned above, the Rothschilds were one of five firms in charge of the London Gold Market, which was tasked with fixing gold prices and overseeing the operation of the gold market in London. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) was established in 1987 when the Bank of England decided an independent body was needed to handle this role.

The organisation gets its members from a number of banks, brokers and other firms involved in the precious metals market. You can find its board members here. No Rothschilds are involved, and there’s no evidence they have control of the body by any other means.

Over the centuries the Rothschilds have acquired trillions worth of gold and cornered the world’s gold supply (15:18)

If there’s any evidence for this, the documentary isn’t presenting it. In 2023, A Sunday Times wealth report estimated the Rothschild family fortune to be worth a modest billion dollars. It’s quite possible that it’s substantially more than that and the public is unaware of its true extent, but this this never seems to be substantiated by conspiracy theorists on this topic.

The Rothschilds own the world’s largest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell (15:27)

Not true. In 1912, Royal Dutch Shell bought out a Rothschild-owned oil company named Bnito, which operated in the Russian Empire. As part of the deal, the Rothschilds became shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell.⁸ They never had a controlling share, and in 2022 Rothschild Investment Corp closed their position in Shell PLC, at which point they no longer held any shares in the company.⁹

Through Central Banks, the Rothschild family control the money supply of almost every nation on earth (16:23)

Wrong. Most central banks are controlled by governments and run through boards and committees. Most are entirely state-owned, and have quite a bit of transparency in their governance structure. In a couple of minutes we’ve heard the Rothschilds control most of the world’s wealth, most of its gold, major television networks, the world’s biggest oil company and most central banks, all without a shred of evidence.

In 1910, Seven of the world’s richest Jewish men held a secret meeting to establish the Federal Reserve (16:29)

The documentary only names five of these seven. These men — A. Piatt Andrew, Benjamin Strong, Nelson Aldrich, Henry Davison, Arthur Shelton, Frank Vanderlip and Paul Warburg — did meet at Jekyll Island to devise a plan to reform the country’s banking system. But the claim they were all Jewish is false. Of these seven, only one, Paul Warburg, was Jewish.

The three most powerful men who opposed the Federal Reserve all died aboard the Titanic (17:00)

Benjamin Guggeneim, Isador Straus and John Jacob Astor are listed as three of the richest men in the world, whose deaths aboard the Titanic ended serious opposition to the creation of the Federal Reserve. It is true they all died on the Titanic, and all were very wealthy, with Astor being one of the richest men in the world at the time of his death.

But there is no evidence any of the three were opposed to central banking or a Federal Reserve. In fact, a 1911 New York Times edition reported that Astor was a big supporter of the idea.¹⁰

But it gets better: Isidor Straus not only wrote in favour of establishing a central bank,¹¹ he actually served as treasurer of the New York branch of the National Citizens' League for the Promotion of a Sound Banking System, which existed to petition for the establishment of the Federal Reserve. Now guess who had a role in establishing this organisation? None other than Paul Warburg!¹² If anything, a conspiracy centered around the Titanic sinking would make more sense if the filmmakers said it was targeting supporters of the Federal Reserve.

With many Congressmen and Senators home for Christmas, Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve into existence (17:29)

The act had been debated for months before it came to a vote, it didn’t catch anyone by surprise while they were home for Christmas. The US House of Representatives approved the bill 298-60, and the Senate approved it 43-25.¹³ Nothing would have changed with greater attendance or more debate.

The Federal Reserve gave control of the nation’s money supplies to private interests (17:38)

The structure of the US Federal Reserve is enormously complicated and makes good material for conspiracy theories. The Fed doesn’t fall under the executive branch but is supposed to be an independent agency with oversight from Congress. This is intended to give it some independence from day-to-day political pressures and oversight.

The Federal Reserve System is considered to be an independent central bank. It is so, however, only in the sense that its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive branch of the government. The entire System is subject to oversight by the U.S. Congress….the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government.¹⁴

The Fed is structured like a corporation, and twelve Federal Reserve Banks are “owned” by private member banks in their districts, but this “ownership” doesn’t give them the kind of control ownership confers in any other corporate context. These Reserve Banks don’t operate for profit, and commercial banks own stock in them to satisfy a condition of membership in the system. The earnings of these Reserve Banks are required by law to be transferred back to the US Treasury. The Board of Governors is still appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1913 that he regretted handing control of the country to a banking cartel (17:55)

Europa says that Wilson wrote these words in 1913:

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

Wilson never said this. This website breaks down the background to this quote. Basically, part of it is made up, and the rest is mined from two different paragraphs of a book Wilson wrote BEFORE establishing the Federal Reserve. So Wilson’s support for the Federal Reserve was actually motivated by this kind of sentiment about limiting the monopoly power of private bankers, it certainly wasn’t an expression of regret. I can’t find any speeches or writings after the act where Wilson expresses any regret over the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Jewish bankers and their Rabbis celebrated the passing of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 (18:34)

It’s not clear what he’s referring to and I can’t find anything on this topic. It looks like someone attached this caption to an old photo of a Rabbi standing with businessmen and the film ran with it.

“The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money.” — Charles Lindbergh (18:45)

This is a real quote. It’s usually posted without a source, but I tracked it down to Chapter XIII of a book Lindbergh wrote called The Economic Pinch.¹⁵

“The adoption of the debt-based financial system preached by Marx in the Communist Manifesto had been accomplished” (19:08)

Marx saw capitalist credit creation as exploitative and never advocated anything close to a “debt-based financial system”. Marx envisioned communist society as being classless and moneyless. With the means of production collectively owned, there would be no more profit-seeking or usury.

The elite that own the Federal Reserve control other banks, corporations, and the world’s money supply. It creates worthless money out of thin air, backed by nothing. (19:42)

As is common in this kind of conspiracy content, the filmmakers are really overestimating the role of the Fed in control of the world’s money supply.

This is a painfully complex topic, but I did my best to explain how the global financial system and its money supply really works in my article on the Eurodollar system, so to conclude, I’m going to suggest you go read that for some real red pills:

One important takeaway for this though, is that while money is created out of thin air, through credit creation, this is not done by the Federal Reserve, but by private banks.

End of part 2

Read part 3 here.

1. https://www.rothschildarchive.org/collections/archivists_choice/february_2019_telegraphic_code_books_south_american_business_1909_1938

2. https://fintel.io/news/woodbridge-co-ltd-discloses-stake-in-ca-tri-thomson-reuters-corp-0.10888386676554429

3. https://thebhc.org/n-m-rothschild-sons-royal-mint-refinery-golden-opportunity

4. Blagg, Michele. "The Royal Mint Refinery: a business adapting to change, 1919-1968." PhD diss., King's College London (University of London), 2013.

5. https://cdn.lbma.org.uk/downloads/Alch71.pdf

6. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/1964/the-london-gold-market.pdf

7. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/apr/15/1

8. Yergin, Daniel. The prize: The epic quest for oil, money & power. Simon and Schuster, 2011.

9. https://fintel.io/so/us/rds.a/rothschild-investment-corp-il

10. https://www.nytimes.com/1911/10/16/archives/isidor-straus-urges-new-banking-plan-replies-to-jj-hills-attack-on.html

11. https://archive.is/qsOJv#selection-521.80-521.149

12. https://histecon.fas.harvard.edu/crisis-next/1907/docs/Chen-Warburg_Final_Paper.pdf

13. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/federal-reserve-act-signed

14. https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/doctor-econ/2003/09/private-public-corporation/#:~:text=Yes%20and%20no.,in%20fulfilling%20its%20varying%20roles

15. Lindbergh, Charles August. The economic pinch. Dorrance, 1923.