Deutsche Orientbank

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Former head office in Sirkeci, Istanbul (left), later Orientbank Hotel
The Orientbank's name on its former branch building in Sirkeci
Former branch in Hamburg, Jungfernstieg 22[1]

The Deutsche Orientbank (DOB, lit. 'German Bank of the Orient') was a German bank, founded in 1905-1906 in Berlin and merged into Dresdner Bank in 1931-1932. It was originally intended for financing ventures in the Ottoman Empire and the Khedivate of Egypt.[2]

In mid-1914 the Orientbank absorbed the Levantine network of Deutsche Palästina-Bank, established in the late 19th century as an earlier endeavor to develop German economic influence in the Ottoman Empire.[3]

History

Deutsche Palästina-Bank branch in Jaffa, 1914

At its founding in 1905-1906, driven by banker

A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bank Association, with respective shares of 37.5 percent for Dresdner and 31.25 percent for each of the other two. It was part of a broader German push to gain influence in the Ottoman Empire, also involving Deutsche Bank and the financing of the Berlin–Baghdad railway. The newly established Orientbank soon took over the branches in Hamburg and Constantinople of Banque d'Orient, a stillborn venture of National Bank of Greece, initially in partnership with Nationalbank für Deutschland but with the latter soon replaced by France's Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris.[4]
: 72 

Initially the Orientbank was kept out of major deals by the dominant alliance of Deutsche Bank and the

Alexandretta (1913). The German business of DPB was separately restructured by the Nationalbank für Deutschland.[3]

During World War I, the activity of the Orientbank's in Egypt was suspended by the British authorities. In 1916, the Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein withdrew from the Orientbank, selling its shares to a consortium of German and Austrian-Hungarian banks. After the war, the bank's Levantine network was liquidated by the Public Custodian of Enemy Property under British rule.[3]: 158 

By 1919-1920, it had branches in Constantinople (main branch in Sirkeci and branch offices in Galata, Pera, and Kadıköy); in Adana, Bursa, Edirne, and Mersin; in Aleppo in Syria; and in Egypt in Alexandria, Beni Suef, Cairo, Damanhur, Mansoura, Minya, and Tanta.[1]

The

Nazi transactions in stolen gold, for which Istanbul was a hub,[6] and was eventually liquidated in 1946.[7]

Buildings

The head office in Berlin was successively at Markgrafenstrasse 56, then Französische Strasse 29. The main branch in Constantinople, in the Sirkeci neighborhood of Eminönü, designed by Prussian architect August Jasmund [tr] and completed in 1912, was known as Germanya Han [tr] (lit. 'Germany's commercial building'). Following a major renovation in 2021, it has become the Orientbank Hotel Istanbul.[8] In Hamburg, the Orientbank's branch was established in a prominent building on the Jungfernstieg quayside, designed by Martin Haller and Hermann Geissler [de] and completed in 1899; it later became offices for Dresdner Bank, then Commerzbank.[citation needed]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Hamburger Adressbuch". Hamburg University. 1920.
  2. ^ Wolfgang G. Schwanitz (2002), Gold, Bankiers und Diplomaten. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Orientbank 1906–1946, Berlin{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^
    S2CID 188020887
  4. ^ a b Monica Pohle Fraser (2016), East Meets West - Banking, Commerce and Investment in the Ottoman Empire, Routledge
  5. ^
    S2CID 152621352
  6. ^ Johannes Bähr (2006), Die Dresdner Bank im Dritten Reich, Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag
  7. ^ "Die Deutsche Orient-Bank". Deutsche Vertretungen in der Türkei.
  8. ^ "East Meets Glitz". Orientbank Hotel.
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