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| Home > Topics > USA > Deutsche Bank in the US |
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Georg von Siemens |
A management team without experience of business abroad was hardly conceivable for a bank whose purpose, written into its articles of association, was to promote German foreign trade. Georg von Siemens, the first Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors of Deutsche Bank, and his colleague Hermann Wallich had experience of foreign business, albeit not in North America. Another member of the Board of Managing Directors of the early days, who did not stay for long in the somber offices in Französische Strasse in Berlin, was a German-American: Wilhelm Platenius, whose knowledge of business in New York was to be of use to the bank.
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| Knoblauch & Lichtenstein 1872 |
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But the bank's first attempts to gain a footing on the American continents were not born under a lucky star. Deutsche Bank acquired stakes in the German-Belgian La Plata Bank with operations in South America and in the newly founded private bank Knoblauch & Lichtenstein in New York already in 1872. As overseas business offices, the two companies brought more trouble than satisfaction. They were liquidated in the 1880s.
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Constructing the Northern Pacific Railway 1875 |
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That was during a period in which Deutsche Bank had already developed a strong interest in business in North American railway equities, an involvement that was to play an influential role in its activities in the United States until the First World War. American railway securities had already become popular in Germany starting in the middle of the 19th century - among both investors and speculators. The selection was gigantic, but sometimes the risk as well.
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Chicago Terminal Transfer RR |
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