German Banking between the Wars: The Crisis of the Credit Banks

Abstract

This article argues that the business policies of the German credit banks were only a secondary cause of the troubles that befell them between the wars and that the primary explanation lies in the instability of their monetary environment and of the credit sector's competitive structure. By carefully tracing the impacts of the interwar inflation and stabilization and of the 1931 crisis on the German banking industry, setting them in the context of domestic and international political developments, the article explains the limited choices available to the banks in this period and their relative eclipse during the Third Reich.