Austrian Banks in the Period of National Socialism

This book gives a detailed account of how two major Austrian banks profited from their service to the Nazi regime.

This book gives a detailed account of how two major banks - the Creditanstalt-Wiener Bankverein and the Länderbank Wien - profited from their service to the Nazi regime. It traces their involvement in the dispossession of Jewish business owners and in financing industrial firms vital to the Third Reich's war effort.This book is the English translation of Gerald D. Feldman's contributions to the multi-author, two-volume study Österreichische Banken und Sparkassen im Nationalsozialismus und in der Nachkeriegszeit, which was originally published in German by C. H. Beck in 2006. Austrian Banks in the Period of National Socialism focuses on the activities of two major financial institutions, the Creditanstalt-Wiener Bankverein and the Länderbank Wien. It details the ways the two banks served the Nazi regime and how they used the opportunities presented by Nazi rule to expand their business activities. Particular attention is given to the role that the Creditanstalt and Länderbank played in the 'Aryanization' of Jewish-owned businesses. The book also examines the two banks' relations with their industrial clients and considers the question of whether bank officials had any knowledge of their client firms' use of concentration camp prisoners and other forced laborers during World War II.