The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank (review)

Even before the boom of historical studies about German firms in the Third Reich began in the middle of the 1990s, a volume on the history of the Deutsche Bank was published that received much attention. This book included a contribution by Harold James giving a comprehensive account of the development and activities of the bank between 1933 and 1945. It was less for this positive example than for the international debate starting in 1996 on the role of German companies in the exploitation of stolen gold and the use of forced labor, that from then on, a number of studies examined the behavior of other German banks (Dresdner Bank, Commerzbank) in the time of the Nazi dictatorship. The Deutsche Bank, too, assigned Jonathan Steinberg and Harold James with further research on its gold trade and “aryanizations” of enterprises—not because, as the preface would have it, new sources had become available due to the opening of archives in the United States, Central Europe, and Russia, but rather because of public pressure. The results were published in 1999 and 2001 (The Deutsche Bank and its Gold Transactions during the Second World War and The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War against the Jews).

In fact, this book under review is an expanded version of James's article from 1995, previously available only in German, and which includes the new results of his and Steinberg's studies. As in his earlier account, James indicates that the general economic situation at the beginning of the Third Reich possessed great significance for the behavior of the bank. The collaboration of the Deutsche Bank with the Nazi regime, including its participation in the Nazi war and extermination policies, can be explained to some degree by the bank's poor financial situation after the slump, by the Nazi's massive ideological criticism of the banks after Hitler came to power, and by its exclusion from numerous former business interests (e.g. business credits) through the Nazi rearmament policy and its state banks. In doing so, James not only refutes the old theory that National Socialism was steered by big business, but also offers a meaningful rectification of the OMGUS report on the Deutsche Bank, written in 1946/1947 by the US Treasury Department employees who shared a critical attitude toward major corporations and banks.

The study focuses not on the general business development of the largest German bank, but rather on its participation in Nazi policies and the criminal transactions that followed. For the prewar period, James describes the activities of Georg Emil von Strau\ss, a member of the board of directors, in the film business and the car industry, as well as several examples for the bank's “aryanization” policy. James makes clear how the practice of “aryanization” was shaped by the large discretion left to the bank's branches in determining its course of action. For the war years, James also examines the bank's participation in the theft of Jewish bank accounts. The longest chapter deals in detail with the company's policy in the occupied countries. This policy was formed to a considerable degree by the decisions of competitors and the bank's self-set goal of market leadership in certain areas. James describes the purchase of Austrian Creditanstalt, the rapid expansion of branches in Poland, and aspirations toward assets in Belgium and Southeast Europe. He also treats the bank's participation in the export of gold stolen from the Jewish population and the trade with stolen securities. In his last chapter, James examines the state's influence on the Deutsche Bank during the war.

Because of the detailed descriptions of the bank's criminal activities against the Jewish population and in the occupied countries, the general business development and strategy of the Deutsche Bank becomes less clear to the reader. James himself, however, in his depiction of the business situation at his starting point in...