Central bank of the German savings banks
The Centralbank of the German Savings Banks , or Centralbank for short, was an Austrian financial institution last domiciled in Vienna , which got into trouble in the mid-1920s. The rescue of the Central Bank planned by the Ramek government in July 1926 through its own law with federal liability led to considerable political discussions and the creation of a separate parliamentary committee of inquiry . The central bank scandal became one of the great financial scandals of the First Republic.
history
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The Centralbank was founded in 1901 as the central money equalization office of the German-Bohemian savings banks and initially had its headquarters in Prague . In 1916, during the First World War , it moved its headquarters to Vienna. At the end of the war, due to the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy , it lost a large part of its business, and the Bohemian and Moravian branches had to be separated in 1920/21. As a result, the weakened institute tried to act as a savings bank in small post-war Austria as well, albeit with moderate success (it was later found that only about five percent of the total funds of the Austrian savings banks were invested in the Central Bank). On the shareholder side , the Centralbank became increasingly dependent on a group of investors under the leadership of the Styrian industrialist and temporarily Greater German MP Viktor Wutte .
The acute crisis at the Centralbank arose due to its own problems (unprofitable investments, participation in dubious start-ups during the inflationary period), but also due to the more or less forced takeover of three other endangered institutions. The industrial and commercial bank got into difficulties mainly through loans to its main shareholder, the speculator Peter Wesetn, the Lower Austrian farmers' bank, which is close to the Christian Socials, had participated in an expansive and amateurish way in the feverish stock market game of 1923/24 and the Steirerbank , founded in 1920 on Circle around the Styrian Governor Rintelen , had burned his fingers, among other things, in a bull market operation with STEWEAG shares.
The support for the three institutes mentioned by way of partial or total mergers, also at the insistence of the then Finance Minister Jakob Ahrer , overwhelmed the already weakened bank. On June 30, 1926, an article in the Wiener Nachmittagsblatt, Der Abend, reported with many accurate details on the difficult situation of the Central Bank. In order to avoid a run on the bank, the Ramek government issued a kind of guarantee that same evening. Regardless of this, probably unconstitutional, measure there were withdrawals in the first days of July, which used up the entire cash reserves of the federal government. On July 6, 1926, the government presented the Central Bank Act, which was intended to legalize the measures taken. It met with strong resistance from the opposition. The version ultimately adopted provided for a moratorium and a parliamentary committee of inquiry that held 20 meetings by the end of the year. His report and protocols published daily are among the most valuable economic historical sources of the First Republic.
literature
- Michael Harrer: The fall of the Central Bank of the German Savings Banks ; University of Vienna, Diploma thesis 2011 ( online )
- Karl Ausch : When the banks fell - on the sociology of political corruption. Europaverlag, Vienna 1968
- Report of the Central Bank Committee, No. 675 of the Supplements of the Second Legislative Period of the Austrian National Council
- The Austrian economist , second half of 1926