Width at front: c. 4.7 metres
The Grünes Schild was built around 1540. For almost two and a half centuries it was occupied by various families. At the time of the great Judengasse fire in 1711, when the house was destroyed and subsequently rebuilt, it was mostly occupied by members of the Schiff family, a rich family of importance in Frankfurt. They operated a moneylending and moneychanging business here. The Grünes Schild only acquired particular importance in the history of the Judengasse towards the end of the ghetto period around 1800 and in the subsequent decades. During this time the Rothschild family adopted it as their "family home". In fact, the most famous of Frankfurt's Jewish families only lived in the house for a short time, since the founder of the legendary banking house, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, with his wife Gutle and their children only moved into the house in 1785. His sons and daughters left the house when they came of age, so that after his death in 1812 his wife was the only Rothschild living there. However, Gutle Rothschild lived almost to the age of 100 and lived in the Grünes Schild until her death in 1849. She stayed in the house although the order limiting the Jews to the Ghetto had been lifted decades earlier. After Gutle's death the house was turned into a museum of the Rothschild family. It is the only house to have survived the demolition of the Judengasse, and was only destroyed in the bombing during the Second World War.