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And 'Aryanization' of the Vienna Branches of the Banque Des Pays De L'europe Centrale and of the Živnostenská Banka, 1938

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And 'Aryanization' of the Vienna Branches of the Banque Des Pays De L'europe Centrale and of the Živnostenská Banka, 1938 Dieter Ziegler (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) The 'Germanisation' and 'Aryanization' of the Vienna branches of the Banque des Pays de l'Europe Centrale and of the Živnostenská banka, 1938 Paper 9th EBHA-Conference “Corporate Images – Images of the Corporation” Frankfurt 01-03 September 2005 Session 3 B ‘Aryanization Contracts’ Revisited Prof. Dr. Dieter Ziegler Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft Ruhr-Universität D-44780 Bochum Email: [email protected] When Germany started its military expansion in Central Europe in 1938 the “Aryanization” of business property in the Old Reich had reached its climax, before it came to an end by the end of the year, when Jews were no longer entitled to carry on any business. In the occupied areas the problem of business property was even greater for the national socialists than in the Old Reich, because in addition to the Jews who were to be immediately ousted from the economy, armaments and other relevant industries, banks, insurance companies etc. had to be transferred to proprietors and managers who were regarded as reliable as Germans. These industries and businesses had to be “Germanized”. That meant that foreigners, whether Jews or non-Jews, as well as local industrialists and bankers, who were not regarded as ethnic Germans were also to be expelled from leading positions in the economy. In the final stage of the “Aryanization” process in the Old Reich the authorities had already realized that although the chaotic and mainly unregulated “Aryanizations” of the past years had been effective from the point of view of “Judenpolitik”, that is, to deprive the German Jews’ capability of economic survival, from the point of view of the economy, especially of the emerging war economy, it was counterproductive. Already in 1936, when the extraordinarily expensive Four-Year-Plan was started, Göring and Hitler were convinced that Jewish property was urgently needed to fund their war efforts. Up to now it was “German” private business and individuals that got the booty of the rape of “Jewish” business property, not the state. However, it was very difficult to start an organised overall expropriation of the German Jews as long as Germany was both militarily and economically vulnerable. In 1938 this situation had changed. While in the Old Reich it was too late to change “Aryanization” practices, the occupied areas, Austria in the first place, became a testing ground for a more state-regulated expropriation process. Often “Germanisation” and “Aryanization” efforts overlapped. This is shown by the following second case study of this panel, the “Germanisation” of the branches of two foreign banks, the French Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale (Zentraleuropäische Länderbank) and the Czechoslovakian Živnostenská banka. While the “Germanisation” mainly affected the business property, which belonged to foreign proprietors, the “Aryanization” affected the staff, which was in both cases and in the case of the French bank particularly in the higher ranks “non Aryan”. In order to create an overall ethnic “German” bank, which was strong enough to support the Reich efforts to rebuild the Austrian economy, the interaction between private business and the authorities had to reach an intensity that was as yet unknown in the Old Reich. 1. The reorganisation of Austrian banking in spring 1938 Already several months before Hitler made it at the Berchtesgaden Conference quite clear, that Austria had no future as an independent state, the Viennese Mercurbank took the initiative to form a large German-controlled bank in Vienna. In October 1937 the Jewish executive of the supervisory board, the Hungarian citizen Gabor (Gabriel) Neumann, asked the Dresdner Bank as the parent company of the Mercurbank for authorization to negotiate with the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale in Paris for the takeover of its Vienna branch. The Dresdner Bank executive board member and chairman of the supervisory board of the Mercurbank Hans Pilder realized the necessity to provide for the case of the Austrian “Anschluss”, especially since he expected that the Dresdner’s biggest rival, the Deutsche Bank, took over the largest Austrian bank, the Credit-Anstalt, with which it cultivated a long- lasting friendly relationship. The major shareholder of the Credit-Anstalt was the Austrian state, so that after the annexation the Deutsche Bank could easily buy the shares. In this case Pilder did not expect any trouble from the German Government. With the Credit-Anstalt as Daughter Company the Deutsche Bank did not only have an advantage over the Dresdner Bank in Austria, but it had also the best starting position to expand its concern into the southeast of Europe.1 In early march 1938, only a few days before the German troops invaded into Austria, Neumann started his talks with the general manager of the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale, Henry Reuter. The Dresdner Bank, however, did not only rely on the negotiations with Paris, but examined the possibilities of taking over the Credit-Anstalt with the Foreign Office. A few days later the reorganisation of Austrian banking became definite as the German troops invaded Austria. The Dresdner Bank had organised Neumann’s flight to Paris, where he immediately contacted Reuter. For Reuter the situation had also changed completely, since he did not expect the new German administration tolerating a bank, which was in French possession and under a mainly Jewish administration. In addition, the situation in Vienna had become extremely dangerous, because large parts of the staff prepared for leaving the country whether they were French citizens or Austrian. With the exception of Baron Victor von der Lippe the whole executive management, and on the second level of the hierarchy 25 out of 31 members, were Jewish. Therefore, the Vienna branch was described as being in dissolution. For this reason the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale was forced to come to terms with any interested party. The Dresdner Bank was not the first choice of Reuter and his deputy in Vienna Joseph Chappey, but the Munich private bank Merck, Finck & Co. Even a merger with the Credit-Anstalt was taken into account, but the general manager of the latter suspected that the authorities would approve no arrangement as long as the Dresdner Bank was interested. This estimation was certainly correct. The Dresdner Bank’s initiative to merge the Vienna branch of the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale with the Mercurbank gained the support not only of the Reich Economics Ministry and the Reichsbank but also by Wilhelm Keppler, Hitler’s economic advisor and the Reich plenipotentiary for Austrian Affairs. While Neumann and Pilder negotiated with Reuter, Karl Rasche, the member of the Dresdner Bank’s executive board with the closest ties to the authorities in Austria, looked after the head of the Reich Economics Ministry’s task force in Vienna, Hermann Göring’s right-hand man Hans Kehrl, and Keppler’s chief of staff Edmund Veesenmayer. Immediately after the invasion Rasche had contacted Kehrl, who had just arrived in Vienna, with a proposal for the reorganisation of Austrian banking. The truth in this proposal was the merger of the Mercurbank with the Vienna branch of the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale and four provincial banks belonging to the concern of the Credit-Anstalt: the Bank für Oberösterreich und Salzburg in Linz, the Bank für Kärnten in Klagenfurt, the 1 Historisches Archiv der Dresdner Bank (HADrB), Bestand 87, Konsortial-Abteilung, File 29961-2001.BE, Steiermärkische Escompte-Bank in Graz and the Hauptbank für Tirol und Vorarlberg in Innsbruck. Kehrl and the Austrian Economics Minister Hans Fischböck not only agreed with Rasche, but went even a step further and proposed to include the Government-owned Austrian Kreditanstalt für öffentliche Unternehmungen und Arbeiten. The condition was to elect several persons with close ties to the Austrian Government and the Reich administration onto the supervisory board of the new bank. In addition the Dresdner Bank had to abstain from opening branches in Austria and to keep the Mercurbank as a formally independent institution. Finally, the Mercurbank had to close its branches at those places where those provincial banks were situated, which were part of the merger plan. 2 Rasche agreed to Kehrl’s plan but maintained that the business of the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale was “overloaded by pensions”, by which he probably meant the employees who had already left the bank’s service and who were expected to do so in the near future, that is, the clerks of Jewish origin. In addition he mentioned Reuter’s claim for a goodwill compensation, which was usually not granted when a business in Germany came to be aryanized. In order to strengthen the position of the Dresdner Bank in its negotiations with Reuter Rasche suggested putting pressure on both the bank’s administration in Paris and the only remaining manager in Vienna, Baron von der Lippe.3 In early April Neumann and Pilder met Reuter in Basle and started their official negotiations about a merger between the Mercurbank and the Vienna branch of the Banque des Pays de l‘Europe Centrale. The strategy pursued by Pilder was different from Rasche’s. While the latter trusted in the support of the political authorities, which in any case had to agree to the contract, Pilder was concerned about the international reputation of both the Dresdner Bank as parent company and the newly created daughter in Vienna. Even after the War Neumann described Pilder as a fair business partner during the negotiations. The goodwill question and the problem of the “non-Aryan” bank clerks indeed developed into the most difficult topics on the agenda. The French emphasized the importance of the Vienna branch on the Austrian finance market and the high reputation of the company name.
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