Bank of German countries

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  • Incorrect transcription from 1950 from Karlsruhe (regular until 1949), see Deutsche Mark

  • Correct transcription from 1950 from Munich

  • Coins from 1949

The Bank deutscher Länder ( BdL ) was founded on March 1, 1948 by decree in Frankfurt am Main . This was preceded by long quarrels between the Allied occupying powers and the establishment of state central banks in the American and French zones . The British view of the need for a single central bank and a common monetary policy for the newly organized Germany prevailed. The BdL was thus in fact a functional successor to the Reichsbank and a forerunner of the Bundesbank .

Structure and tasks

The central task of the bank was monetary policy in the American and British zones. On June 16, 1948, the three central banks of the French zone joined the BdL and the Allied Banking Commission with retroactive effect to March 25. Until 1951 it was subject to the authority of the Western Allies . After that it was independent and was not subject to the instructions of the federal government at the time (in 1951 this was the Adenauer I cabinet , from 1953 the Adenauer II cabinet ).

BdL organs were the directorate and the central bank council . The central bank council included the nine presidents of the state central banks ; these nine elected a president. However, he was not the president of one of the banks. The Central Bank Council was responsible for key decisions. This in turn determined the President of the Board of Directors and his deputy. The President of the Board of Directors then appointed the other members of the Board of Directors. The task of the Board of Directors was to implement the decisions of the Central Bank Council. After the establishment of the Bank deutscher Länder, Karl Bernard was elected Chairman of the Central Bank Council on May 5, 1948, and Wilhelm Vocke was elected President of the Board of Directors on May 20, 1948.

The BdL's share capital was owned by the central banks and - initially still Reichsmark - had been 100 million DM since the currency reform on June 21, 1948 . At the beginning of the BdL there were around 300 employees. The headquarters of the BdL was the former Reichsbank headquarters in the Taunusanlage in Frankfurt am Main. In 1949 around 1,450 people were employed here.

By directives (48) 12 and (48) 21 of the Allied Banking Commission (June / July 1948), the BdL was assigned the tasks associated with the financial settlement of foreign trade with effect from August 1, 1948 (for the French zone in April 1949) . The BdL had taken over and continued the administration of the foreign exchange holdings and the execution of the foreign exchange payment transactions from the Joint Foreign Exchange Agency (JEFA), which was previously responsible for this . In a similar way, the business of the former Joint Export Import Agency (JEIA) and the Joint Foreign Trade Fund (GAK) were transferred to the BdL.

The state central banks were institutions of the states; the Bank deutscher Länder was a federal institution.

On August 1, 1957, the Bank of German States, the Central Banks and the Berlin Central Bank were replaced by the Deutsche Bundesbank with the law on the Deutsche Bundesbank . On July 31, 1957, the BdL had foreign exchange and gold holdings amounting to DM 10.105 billion.

Coinage

1-pfennig coins were minted with the year 1948 and 1949, 5 and 10-pfennig coins with the year 1949 and 50-pfennig coins with the year 1949 and 1950 (low number of 30,000 pieces). After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany these types of coins continued to be minted, only the inscription changed from "BANK DEUTSCHER LÄNDER" to "BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND".

Others

In the Soviet Occupation Zone ( SBZ ), the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) founded the German Central Bank on July 20, 1948 - about one month after the introduction of the D-Mark . It was the eastern counterpart to the BdL. On January 1, 1968, the German Central Bank was renamed the State Bank of the GDR .

literature

  • Deutsche Bundesbank (Ed.): Fifty Years of the Deutsche Mark - Central Bank and Currency in Germany since 1948. CH Beck, 1998, ISBN 3-406-43659-5 .
  • Theo Horstmann: About the “worst banking system in the world”. The inter-allied disputes over American plans to reform the German banking system in 1945/46. In: Bank historical archive . II (1985) pp. 3-27.
  • Theo Horstmann: Continuity and Change in the German Central Bank System. The Bank of German States as a result of the Allied occupation policy after World War II. In: Theo Pirker (ed.): Autonomy and control. Contributions to the sociology of the financial and tax state . Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-923024-22-3 , pp. 135ff.
  • Eckhard Wandel : The emergence of the bank of German states and the German currency reform in 1948. Habilitation thesis . Frankfurt am Main 1979.
  • Theo Pirker (Ed.): The bizonal savings commissioners: Public financial control in the field of tension between self and external interests . Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-531-12385-8 .

Web links

Commons : Bank deutscher Länder  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ the three Western Allies enforced it separately in their respective zones of occupation : the USA through 'Law No. 60' of March 1, 1948, Great Britain through 'Ordinance No. 129' of March 1, 1948 and France through 'Ordinance No. 203 'of March 26, 1948 (full text)
  2. ^ Werner Abelshauser : German economic history since 1945. 2nd edition. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-51094-6 , p. 123.
  3. ↑ BT-Drs. 1/4240 : § 36
  4. ^ Lothar Gall (1995): Die Deutsche Bank, 1870-1995 , p. 488 ( online ).
  5. ↑ European Commission : Economic and Financial Affairs. - Study: Michael Cwik: "The federal central bank system in the Federal Republic of Germany before 1957 (Bank of German States) ..." . (PDF; 3 MB). May 15, 1970.
  6. ^ Annual report of the Deutsche Bundesbank for the year 1957, p. 33.
  7. ↑ Arnold / Küthmann / Steinhilber, Large German coin catalog from 1800 to today