Bank for Trade and Industry (Berlin)
The Bank für Handel und Industrie AG ( BHI ) (1949 to 1950: Berliner Bank für Handel und Industrie AG ) was a financial institution in West Berlin from 1949 to 1991 and part of the Dresdner Bank Group.
history
After the Second World War , the major German banks Deutsche Bank , Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank were smashed by the victorious Allied powers. In the Soviet Zone , the banks were nationalized. The Dresdner Bank therefore relocated to West Berlin.
In the western occupation zones, the branches of Dresdner Bank were divided into sub-banks. The basis was the law of the American military government No. 57 of May 6, 1947, which the French and British military governments followed with laws of October 1, 1947 and April 1, 1948, respectively. According to this, banks were only allowed to operate branches in the country in which they were headquartered.
Dresdner Bank as such lost the branches in East and Central Germany through expropriation and those in the west through spin-offs. It was therefore restricted to West Berlin.
In 1949 it was decided to transfer the operational business in West Berlin to a new company, the Berliner Bank für Handel und Industrie AG. Shareholders of this bank were three West German regional institutes of the Dresdner Bank, the Hamburger Kreditbank , the Rhein-Ruhr Bank and the Rhein-Main-Bank . The old Dresdner Bank (the old bank ) remained in place in order to be able to assert claims from the expropriated branches and subsidiaries in central and eastern Germany and abroad (for the further fate of the old bank, see remaining quota ).
The occasion was the currency reform that took place in the three western sectors of Berlin on March 20, 1949.
At the end of 1949 the bank had total assets of 8.3 million DM and 163 employees, making it the largest of the major banks in Berlin. The bank grew rapidly, increasing customer deposits and loans tenfold in the first two years. In 1951 there were 476 employees.
The leading member of the bank's board of directors was Fritz André (1897–1985), who was also responsible for managing the old bank and was the founding director of BWI.
The Big Banks Act (officially the Law on the Settlement of Credit Institutions ) of 1952 confirmed this break-up, but allowed the regional institutions in three regions to be partially reunited. With the merger law (officially law to abolish the branches of credit institutions ) of 1956, the new formation of the nationwide active big banks was allowed again. Dresdner Bank was newly created as a merger of the regional institutes.
Due to the four-power status of Berlin , these laws did not apply there. The bank for trade and industry therefore remained as an independent subsidiary of Dresdner Bank.
With the turnaround in the GDR and the subsequent reunification , the legal framework changed. With the two-plus-four treaty , the Federal Republic of Germany regained full sovereignty and the four-power status of Berlin lapsed. Now there was no longer any reason for the Dresdner Bank to be organized separately in Berlin. In 1991 the bank for trade and industry was merged with the Dresdner Bank.
literature
- Ralf Ahrens, Ingo Köhler, Harald Wixforth, Dieter Ziegler: The Dresdner Bank 1945–1957: Consequences and Continuities after the End of the Nazi Regime , 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58303-8 ( limited preview in the Google book search ).
Individual evidence
- ^ Rudolf Eicke: Das deutsche Banking: Structure, Tasks and Businesses of Banks, Savings Banks and Credit Cooperatives, 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-58303-8 , p. 67 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ^ The Dresdner Bank 1945–1957, p. 197
- ^ The Dresdner Bank 1945–1957, p. 237
- ^ The Dresdner Bank 1945–1957, p. 465