Darmstädter Bank
{{short description|Former German bank}}
{{italics title}}
File:DA-Am-Alten-Bahnhof6.jpg, erected 1873–1875 on a design by architect {{ill|Philipp Johann Berdellé|de}},{{cite web |title=Berdellé, Philipp Johann |url=https://www.lagis-hessen.de/pnd/130094595 |date=2023 |website=Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS)}} used by the bank until 1932]]
The Bank für Handel und Industrie in Darmstadt, often referred to as Darmstädter Bank, was a significant joint-stock bank in Germany, active from 1853 until its merger with Nationalbank für Deutschland to form Danat-Bank in 1922.{{cite book |first=Manfred |last=Pohl |title=Konzentration im deutschen Bankwesen (1848–1980) |location=Frankfurt am Main |publisher=Knapp |year=1982 |isbn=978-3-7819-0269-5 |language=de}}
Overview
File:Abraham Freiherr von Oppenheim (1804–1878).jpg
The Bank für Handel und Industrie was founded by Cologne bankers Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann, Gustav Mevissen, Abraham Oppenheim and Victor Wendelstadt.{{citation |title="... but I consider wealth as a means only and not an end...": On the 150th anniversary of David Hansemann's death |publisher=Historical Association of Deutsche Bank |journal=Bank and History - Historical Review |issue=31 |url=https://www.bankgeschichte.de/files/documents/publications/historical-review/Edition_2014_2.pdf |date=August 2014}}{{rp|6}} It was established with a capital of 25 million guilders and modelled after the French bank Crédit Mobilier, in whose creation in 1852 Oppenheim had been involved and from which it secured backing for the new venture.{{citation |title=The Political Calculus of Capital: Banking and the Business Class in Prussia, 1848-1856 |author=James M. Brophy |journal=Central European History |issue=25:2 |year=1992 |pages=149-176 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4546258 }}{{rp|157}}{{R|NMC|p=49}} The Darmstädter Bank received its banking concession on 2 April {{date|1853/04/02}},[http://www.zeno.org/Brockhaus-1911/A/Bank+f%C3%BCr+Handel+und+Industrie Brockhaus' Kleines Konversations-Lexikon, fünfte Auflage, Band 1. Leipzig 1911., S. 149.], downloaded on 1 April 2009 and started operations shortly afterwards.{{R|Brophy|p=157}} It was thus the second universal bank in Germany founded as a joint-stock company (Aktiengesellschaft), after the A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein in 1848. (The Disconto-Gesellschaft had been established in Berlin in 1851, but only became a joint-stock company in 1856.) The choice of Darmstadt was motivated by regulatory arbitrage, since no concession for a joint-stock bank could be obtained in either the Free City of Frankfurt or the Kingdom of Prussia, while the Grand Duchy of Hesse allowed for easier arrangements.{{citation |title=The German Great Banks and Their Concentration in connection with The Economic Development of Germany |url=https://historyofeconomicthought.mcmaster.ca/riesser/GreatGermanBanks.pdf |year=1911 |author=Jacob Riesser |publisher=National Monetary Commission |location=Washington DC}}{{rp|46}} Despite the inspiration from Crédit Mobilier, the model for the new bank's statutory documents was the A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein, restructured five years earlier with the critical involvement of Deichmann, Mevissen and Wendelstadt.{{R|NMC|p=56}}
The bank soon opened an agency in Frankfurt in 1854 (transformed into a branch in 1864), and branches and affiliates in Berlin, Breslau, Heilbronn, Leipzig, Mainz, and Mannheim as well as New York City in the 1850s and in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Vienna in the 1860s.{{R|NMC|p=60-61}}
In 1871, the Darmstädter Bank led the creation of Amsterdamsche Bank in the Netherlands, and partnered with Anglo-Austrian Bank and Wiener Bankverein to create the {{lang|de|Austro-Ottomanische Bank}}, a joint-stock bank in Constantinople;{{citation |author=Vesna Aleksić |title=From affiliation to nazification: The political destiny of a 'Grossbank' in Yugoslavia 1818–1945 |publisher= Institute of Economic Sciences |location=Belgrade |date=2021 |url=https://www.academia.edu/46933114 }}{{rp|24}} but that venture soon faltered and was acquired by the Imperial Ottoman Bank in 1874.{{cite book |title=La Banque impériale ottomane |author=André Autheman |date=1996 |publisher=Institut de la gestion publique et du développement économique : Comité pour l'Histoire Economique et Financière de la France |location=Paris |chapter=IV. La Banque impériale ottomane, trésorier de l’Empire |series=Histoire économique et financière – XIXe-XXe |pages=57–67 |isbn=9782111294219 |chapter-url=https://books.openedition.org/igpde/4769 }}
In 1873, the bank moved its headquarters to Berlin, having opened a branch there in 1871, but remained colloquially referred to as the Darmstädter Bank. It was one of the four so-called "D-Banks" that dominated German commercial banking at the time (all of which had names starting with a D), together with Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and Disconto-Gesellschaft.{{citation |url=https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p4013coll8/id/2634/download |title=Army Service Forces Manual M356-5 / Military Government Handbook – Germany – Section 5: Money and Banking |publisher=U.S. Army Service Forces |location=Washington DC |author=Federal Reserve Board |date=March 1945}}{{rp|13}} In 1889, it participated in the creation of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in Shanghai, and in 1898, in that of the Banque Internationale de Bruxelles.{{R|NMC|p=448}} Around 1900 it became a shareholder of Belgium-based Crédit Anversois.{{citation |title=La Belgique et ses banques: des rêves de gloire contrariés |author=Éric Dor |journal=Outre-Terre |issue=40 |year=2014 |pages=344–372}} Further German branches were opened in Stettin (1900), Hanover (1901), Düsseldorf, Munich, and Nuremberg (1910).
By end-1908, the Darmstädter Bank was the fourth-largest German joint-stock bank by total deposits, with a total of 109 million Marks, behind Deutsche Bank (489 million), Dresdner Bank (225 million), and Disconto-Gesellschaft (219 million).{{R|NMC|p=209}} In 1913, it took over the {{lang|de|Breslauer Disconto-Bank}} based in Breslau. Between 1918 and 1921, it opened many more branches across Germany,{{cn|date=December 2023}} and acquired majority ownership of Vienna-based Mercurbank,{{cite web |website=Wien Geschichte Wiki |title=Mercurbank |url=https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Mercurbank }} before merging with the Nationalbank für Deutschland in 1922.
File:Berlin-Mitte Postkarte 067.jpg|Postcard of the head office of the Darmstädter Bank in Berlin, Schinkelplatz 1–4, ca. 1900
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H28575, Berlin, Schinkelplatz, Danat-Bank.jpg|The same building in 1925, showing southward expansion (left);{{cite web |website=Getty Images |url=https://www.gettyimages.ie/detail/news-photo/die-darmst%C3%A4dter-bank-am-schinkelplatz-1920-30-news-photo/542384605 |title=Berlin - Sitz der Darmstädter und Nationalbank am Schinkelplatz}} the building was destroyed during World War II
File:Hugo Vogel - Die Industrie unter dem Schutz der Krone.jpg|Industry under the protection of the [German] Crown (1894), mural painting by Hugo Vogel in the Berlin head office (destroyed during World War II)