Established in 1934, the ‘Wirtschaftsgruppe Privates Bankgewerbe’ was both a lobby for the private-sector and an official instrument of National Socialist economic and social policy. It played a major part within the National Socialist system of oppression as well as in organizing and carrying out the persecution of Jews. Ranging from the administrative expropriation of bank accounts to the technical liquidation of the property formerly owned by deported Jews, the ‘Wirtschaftsgruppe’ not only contributed decisively to the deprivation of rights of German and European Jews, but also provided the state’s illegal activities with an aura of legality. Several times a week until April 1945, the ”Wirtschaftsgruppe“ headquarters‘, located in Berlin’s Dorotheenstrasse, sent out reports – some of them declared ‘strictly confidential – to the branches of private banks. Printed in small numbers only and therefore very rare today, these circulars are now available in full as a microfiche edition.
The circulars represent ”the most extensive documentation of how a process of the destruction of property rights was conducted within an apparently normal legal framework“ (Harold James). The circulars disclose detail of how foreign exchange control regulations as well as banking and financial activities were applied as instruments of persecution and annihilation in everyday banking transactions.
In the circulars, for example, senior bank clerks were meticulously instructed how to deal with emigrants’ accounts and securities portfolios and how to handle the technical implementation of proprietary aspects of the discrimination of Jews, e.g. the ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish shops and banks. The involvement of private banks in the National Socialist policy of annihilation is documented comprehensively – an involvement ranging from the opening of special accounts in order to control Jewish investments to the processing of so-called ‘Vermögensfälle’, i.e. the state confiscation of assets formerly owned by Jews who had been deported to death camps. In addition, the circulars contain extensive lists of names of dispossessed citizens of the Reich and of individuals wanted by the financial and tax authorities. In particular the so-called ”Vermögensbeschlagnahmungen der Geheimen Staatspolizei, Staatspolizeileitstelle Wien“ (confiscation of assets by the Gestapo, Headquarters Vienna), and the “Steuersteckbriefe“ (‘wanted’-lists issued by tax authorities), are of special significance for historical research as the names they list were never published in the ‘Reichsanzeiger’ and accordingly, some of them were previously unknown.
Containing a list of members for 1939, this edition also provides information on the ‘Wirtschaftsgruppe’ staff and organizational structure.
The microfiche edition is accompanied by an index volume, which also contains facsimile reprints of the indexes of individual circulars. This facilitates targeted searches for individuals and institutions as well as financial, economic, geographic and legal terms. Name indexes for the years 1941–1945, not featured in the originals, have been drawn up and incorporated along with the subject index of circulars from 1945 which had not previously been indexed. The accompanying volume is prefaced by Harold James, an Oxford based academic specializing in the history of banking and economy. His introduction illustrates the political context and the relevance of the circulars for research on National Socialism in Germany.
This edition is invaluable for institutes, libraries and archives dedicated to the research of the history of economy, banks and businesses and of National Socialism.
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