 He had to withdrew from Romania with major losses and was forced into liquidation in 1872.His political opponents, led by the National Liberal Eduard Lasker, openly denounced his financing methods and his ties with the state government, enforcing the Prussian trade minister Count Itzenplitz to resign in 1873.Though Strousberg came out of the Panic of 1873 unscathed, he was declared bankrupt in 1875, with Adolph von Hansemann and Gerson von Bleichröder snapping up the majority of his railways for fractions of their worth.