In Service at the Foreign Office

In terms of Germany’s policies towards the Orient, probably no other historical figure has been more maligned than Max von Oppenheim, the Cologne banker’s son. He was neither the frequently invoked spy and agitator nor did he execute German foreign policy in the Near East. Hans Krailshaimer’s dictum about the danger of half-truths is pertinent in Oppenheim’s case: the wrong half is always believed.