Western economies saw an average rise in real wages of approximately 4 per cent between 1890 and 1914, Germany’s only rose by 1 per cent. Where did the accumulated wealth go? One answer is the so-called ‘invisible sector’ of financial services, which directed immense profits into the hands of a new elite of investors. Germany became the world’s third-largest creditor nation, and internally German banks controlled much of the cash flow, centralising it into large syndicates rather than small businesses. From this, a long history of suspicion against bankers and the financial elites emerged, which intertwined conveniently with the constant undercurrents of anti-Semitism.