1933-1945
Following Adolf Hitler's assumption of power in 1933, the Dresdner Bank, which had been founded by a Jewish banker, Eugen Gutmann, fired all 600 Jewish employees, including board members as well as bank clerks, and cancelled or confiscated their pensions. In May 1933, "Nazi brownshirts swarmed into the lobby of the Dresdner headquarters and smashed the bronze bust of Eugen to the ground." The bank was declared "Judenrein" ("cleansed" of Jews) and became a tool of Hitler's Nazi regime.[7]
The "Aryanized" bank fully participated in the Nazi regime's aryanization of Jewish businesses and became known as the bank of choice for Heinrich Himmler's SS.[8] As with other banks that had been nationalized to various degrees in 1931, Dresdner Bank was reprivatised in stages in 1936-1937.
After the Nazi Anschluss in 1938, Dresdner Bank on 1938/06/15 acquired ownership of Vienna-based Länderbank through its local subsidiary the Mercurbank, in a transaction forced under duress.[9] The Prague-based Živnostenská Banka's Austrian subsidiary was simultaneously subsumed in the merged entity, renamed Länderbank Wien AG. The new Länderbank had 33 branch offices in Vienna (36 after acquisition of the Austrian business of Società Italiana di Credito in 1939), in comparison to 24 for the rival Creditanstalt-Bankverein that had come under control of Deutsche Bank.
Later in 1938 following the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland, Dresdner Bank, through Länderbank Wien, took over the former branches of the Böhmische Escompte-Bank in the South Moravian towns of Břeclav, Mikulov and Znojmo .[10] In subsequent years, most of the Länderbank's resources were used to finance the Nazi war effort,[11] while in March 1939, Dresdner Bank acquired control of Böhmische Escompte-Bank.
During World War II, Dresdner Bank took over the Böhmische Escompte-Bank in Prague, the Societatea Bancară Română in Bucharest, the Handels- und Kreditbank in Riga, and the Kontinentale Bank in Brussels. It also maintained majority control of the Kommerzialbank in Kraków, Deutsche Handels- und Kreditbank in Bratislava, Banque Bulgare de Commerce in Sofia, and founded the Handelstrust West N. V. in Amsterdam. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia and proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia, Dresdner Bank took a 53 percent stake in Jugoslavenska Banka, renamed Kroatische Landesbank by court order of 1941/06/3.[12] Also in 1941, Dresdner Bank took over management control of the Bank of Athens during the Axis occupation of Greece, without however taking ownership out of consideration for Italian sensitivities.[13] In September 1941, Dresdner Bank appropriated a block of shares owned by Union Européenne Industrielle et Financière, an affiliate of the French Schneider-Creusot group, in the Hungarian General Credit Bank.[14]
Dresdner Bank helped to finance concentration camps, including Auschwitz.[15] The bank was closely involved in the occupation of Europe, "essentially acting as the bank of the SS in Poland".[8]
As a result of World War II 80% of the bank's buildings were destroyed, costing the bank 162 offices in 56 locations.
