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| Home > Topics > Women > Women in Deutsche Bank |
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Female staff in the 1920s |
"The employment of females by some of the local big banks ought to be condemned" - such was a Berlin bank employee's opinion on his female colleagues working in 1914. Regardless of what caused him to make this remark, at the time, it was extremely difficult for women to get even a foot in the door of a bank. The banking profession remained closed to women until the mid-1920s. A mere four female trainees were registered in the entire banking industry in Germany in 1878. An apprenticeship in banking required a more advanced school education which, traditionally, had been denied to girls. For this reason, they could only be employed as unskilled staff with low wages.
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| Cleaning staff in the Berlin head office (1930) |
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The first female staff were employed as telephonists and shorthand typists at Deutsche Bank in the period after 1900 (female cleaning and canteen staff had worked at the Bank from its foundation).
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Telephonists, Hamburg 1929 |
The first female clerk, i.e. a woman who had completed a banking apprenticeship or commercial training was recorded in 1913.
It was only during the First World War, and the subsequent period of high inflation, with its attendant need for more office staff, that larger numbers of women started working in banks. They were mainly employed to operate office machines, which were in use as a result of increased automation. Deutsche Bank, for instance, had 8,363 male and 2,082 female tariff employees as well as 711 male and 150 female trainees on its books in 1927. However, there was not even one woman among the 1,245 directors, authorized representatives and other senior clerks.
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| Accounting department at Frankfurt branch (1930) |
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The global economic crisis of 1929 to 1932 increased the rate of unemployment among skilled staff considerably, although more women than men were affected. This is when the controversy surrounding the employment of married women, and what was pejoratively called the "double earnings" phenomenon, which had been growing steadily since the mid-1920s, reached its peak.
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Register office at Frankfurt branch (1930) |
The National Socialists initially jumped on the bandwagon of rampant resentment towards female employment and preached that a woman's role should be restricted to home, family and children. This was to be supported by means of marriage loans if married women gave up their jobs.
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| Receiving teller, Hamburg (1929) |
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However, after 1936 the Nazi government tried to satisfy the growing need for labour, also for skilled staff, through the employment of women. This is how the prohibition on employing female labour if a couple had been granted a marriage loan was abolished in 1937. The employment of all women - married or not - was again promoted vigorously by the State during the Second World War. This furthered the influx of women to office jobs.
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Female staff at Homburg/Saar branch (1943) |
For example, at Deutsche Bank, the number of female staff rose from around 2,200 (end of 1934) to approximately 3,400 (end of 1940), this amounted respectively to 14.4% and 17.6% of all the Bank's employees.
The views on the employment of women changed completely after the Second World War and even more so in the wake of the women's liberation movement.
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| Accounting department at Berlin 1957 |
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As early as 1956, 45 of every 100 tariff workers employed in the private banking industry in the German Federal Republic were women; today women make up the half or more than the half of all staff working in banks. However, it would still take some time before women could rise through the ranks in banking. For this reason, Deutsche Bank, for example, initiated a campaign entitled "Women in Management Positions" in 1973/74.
In 1988, Ellen R. Schneider-Lenné was the first and until now, only woman to be appointed to the Board of Managing Directors of Deutsche Bank (and indeed, of any German "big bank").
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