http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugger
Looking back in history there are many rich elitists who were supportive of Monarchs, who entered nobility, given ruling presedence over many States in Germany. I started by looking at the Germanic/Dutch family 'Fugger'-
who lived in the 1500's. They started in the weaving trade (textiles), and built up riches to become the biggest family of merchants and bankers of Europe.

Eventually their son Jakob Fugger went forward into political arenas, and was made a noble of the Holy Roman Empire, and became part of a consortium who supported King Charles the Fifth, loaning over 90 000 (ninety thousand) ounces of gold in florins...
The rich Jakob Fugger contributed to nearly 60 percent of that. In today's money 90 000 ounces of gold is worth over 90 million dollars, and in that period of history that was a collosal amount of money. It was loaned to support Charles the Fifth's election pursuit in the Holy Roman Empire,who later was appointed by the Pope as the Holy Emperor of France.

The Holy Roman Empire was an historical elective monarchy, a Union of territories in Europe ,electing their Holy rulers for the terrirtories. Britain previously had an elected monarchy until about the year 1220. The last Holy Emperor elected was Francis the Second who addicated and dissolved the Holy Empire during the Napoleonic wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Mayer_Rothschild
The Rothchild family of nobility and wealth traces back to Germany as far back as the 13th Century, and the main bankers and financiers made their mark in the world of economics druing the period of the early 1800's, starting in the textiles industry and entering banking and financing later. Nathan Mayer Rothschild was one of london richest, His four brothers helped co-ordinate activities across the continent, and the family developed a network of agents, shippers and couriers to transport gold – and information – across Europe, becoming effectively more informed about Europes' activities than the British Government at the time. Nathan Rothschild also benfitted from slavery until slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833 by the British Empire. The Rothschild founded the Royal and SunAlliance financial conglomorate which still exists today around the World- with various websites under different names,
http://www.royal-group.co.uk , royal-sunalliance.com, www.creditfinancecentre.co.uk and the latest http://www.rsagroup.com/rsa/pages/home

You can learn a bit more on the historical periods of economics by following this link:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy

It makes you realize how many of these groups exist, their past history in slavery which helped make them rich. While the majority of people worked to build the nations up, the few financiers and elite rich took the profits and hid them- in tax-havens. Lichtenstein is one of the richest of them all. Each person in Lichtenstein has an average wealth of $118 000, as opposed to the
average in the U.S. of $46 000, and $35 000 in Britain...( see list of GDP per capita )
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=67&l=en

So the wealth was deliberately kept in these tax-haven locations, hundreds of billions of pounds and dollars and gold hidden in vaults, hidden from the benefit of the World.
We often wonder why famine,disease and poverty exists, and it is only because of financial greed for wealth and power that billions of people are kept in poverty and famine, 'skeletons choking on a crust of bread' , disease killing millions of people every year when in reality the weealth could have been solved many decades or centuries ago.

The Germanics were the main fiddlers of wealth... And the countries of the European Parliament have many rich financiers who previously in history built up the wealth for Monarchs, some of whom supported the Holy Roman Empire and paved the way for Kings..not the people of impoversished nations, who were the slaves and who are now still in poverty.

Other Empires around the World also took the riches and left their people in poverty, and it is very difficult to get the wealth of other nations invested in their own people and industries, as many rich elite across the World simply lay the profiteering game, to buy into powerful positions of leadership.

Do the rich and greedy give a damn? Not Likely... This is where true evil lies...
Indeed they are powerful, as the Emperors have forseen...