Darmstadt and National Bank

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Darmstadt and National Bank

logo
legal form KGaA
founding 1922
resolution 1931
Seat Berlin
Branch Banking

Former banking house of the Darmstädter Bank in Darmstadt

The Darmstädter und Nationalbank ( Danat-Bank ) was a German credit institute .

history

Seal mark Darmstädter and Nationalbank

The Darmstädter und Nationalbank was created in 1922 through the merger of the Darmstädter Bank with the Nationalbank for Germany .

The bank for trade and industry based in Darmstadt (usually called Darmstädter Bank for short ) was founded as a stock corporation by Gustav von Mevissen and Abraham Oppenheim based on the model of the French bank Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier with a share capital of 25 million guilders in Darmstadt. She received the banking license on April 2, 1853 . This made it the second share-based credit institute to be set up as a universal bank after A. Schaaffhausen'schen Bankverein . The bank expanded its business area by opening branches in Berlin (1871) and, after the turn of the century, also in Stettin (1900) and Hanover (1901). In 1873 the bank moved its headquarters from Darmstadt to Berlin-Friedrichswerder , to Schinkelplatz 3. Through interest groups with other German banks, the influence of the Darmstadt bank was to be extended to regions in which the bank was not represented. In 1910 branches were set up in Düsseldorf , Munich and Nuremberg . In 1913 the Darmstädter Bank took over the Breslauer Disconto-Bank with a total of 19 branches. In the inflationary years 1918 to 1923 , the Darmstädter Bank opened numerous new branches all over Germany.

Danat Bank

Berlin 1925, main administration building of the Darmstädter und Nationalbank at Schinkelplatz 1–4
Main administration building of the Darmstädter und Nationalbank in Behrenstrasse in 1931
A rush of savers in front of the Sparkasse der Stadt Berlin am Mühlendamm after the collapse of the Darmstadt and National Bank on July 13, 1931

In 1920/21 the Darmstädter Bank for Trade and Industry and the National Bank for Germany formed the Darmstädter-Nationalbank Berlin banking community . Both banks took on mutual guarantees for capital and reserves amounting to over a billion marks . In 1922, the complete merger to form Darmstädter und Nationalbank KGaA , abbreviated as Danat-Bank, followed. This created one of the largest banks in the Weimar Republic . In 1931 Danat was the second largest bank in Germany, but fell into a crisis that same year. Most recently, its headquarters were at Behrenstrasse 68–70 in Berlin, the former headquarters of the merged National Bank for Germany .

crisis

The Danat Bank banking crisis was triggered by two factors. On the one hand, foreign investors withdrew a large part of their bank balances at all German banks , which hit Danat the hardest. In addition to this exogenous factor, Danat-Bank was faced with a high credit risk . The credit volume of its borrower Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei (Nordwolle) - who were accused of falsifying accounts - was 48 million RM in July 1931 at Danat Bank. The losses at Nordwolle were estimated at up to 240 million RM, so that on July 21, 1931, she filed for bankruptcy . This forced Danat-Bank to write off its loan default ; so that the Danat-Bank had to report losses amounting to 45 million RM. Its share capital was nominally RM 60 million, but the Danat Bank had bought back its own shares on a large scale , of which RM 35 million was held, whereby the actual share capital was only RM 25 million and could not cover the losses of RM 45 million. The sum of the large loans of Danat-Bank exceeded its liable equity by more than twenty times. On July 13, 1931, the Danat Bank had to close its counters due to insolvency .

The Danat-Bank was a prominent victim of the deflationary policy in Germany in the wake of the global economic crisis . Their collapse shook confidence in the German banking system and triggered a wave of withdrawals in accounts of all banks and the German banking crisis . The Brüning I government then ordered three bank holidays , operated the merger of the Danat Bank with the Dresdner Bank and carried out a capital increase of 300 percent in the course of the merger. As a result, 75 percent of the “new” Dresdner Bank became the property of the Reich.

Personalities (selection)

Well-known bankers of Danat-Bank and its predecessor institutes were (in alphabetical order):

See also

literature

  • Karl Erich Born :
    • The German banking crisis in 1931. Finances and politics. Piper, Munich 1967.
    • Money and banks in the 19th and 20th centuries (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 428). Kröner, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-520-42801-6 .
  • Manfred Pohl : Concentration in the German banking sector. (1848–1980) (= series of publications by the Institute for Bank History Research, Vol. 4). Knapp, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7819-0269-2 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. Bank for Commerce and Industry . In: Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon . 5th edition, Volume 1. Leipzig 1911, p. 149.
  2. Behrenstrasse 68-70 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1930, III (full-page advertisement of the Dantbank in the 1930 address book with 51 deposit boxes in the entire Berlin city area and one box each in Potsdam and Fürstenwalde).
  3. Gabler Bank-Lexikon, 10th ed. 1983, Col. 276 f.
  4. a b c Karoline Kremm, All power to the banks? On the structure of personal networks in German companies at the beginning of the 20th century . Springer VS 2012 ( ISBN 978-3531176628 ), p. 61 ( online )
  5. Alexander Kitanoff: The acquisition of own shares , 2009, p. 23 ( online )
  6. Kurt Gossweiler (1983): The Röhm Affair: Backgrounds, Connections, Effects , p. 102 ( ISBN 978-3760951515 )
  7. ^ Vossische Zeitung , Monday, July 13, 1931, evening edition: Reich trustee for the Danatbank .
  8. see files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic online

Coordinates: 49 ° 52 ′ 26.1 ″  N , 8 ° 38 ′ 30.9 ″  E