Biographical data:	21.10.1839 in Torgau - 23.10.1901 in Berlin
Institution:	Deutsche Bank
Functions:	Member of the Management Board 1870-1900 (Spokesman 1870-1900)

Georg von Siemens was the central figure in the founding of Deutsche Bank. He decisively influenced its history over three decades. The son of a lawyer and official in the Prussian civil service, he completed his schooling at the "French Gymnasium" in Berlin and then studied law in Heidelberg. Following civil service examinations and military service in the Austro-Prussian War, he joined the company Siemens & Halske. His relationship with Werner von Siemens, the founder of the electric company and his father's cousin, was very close with the result that Werner von Siemens entrusted the young man with leading the negotiations in 1868/69 in London and Tehran for him on the construction of the Indo-European telegraph lines. It was here that Adalbert Delbrück, head of the traditional private bank Delbrück Leo & Co. in Berlin, took note of Georg von Siemens because of his great skill in negotiations. At that time, Delbrück was engaged, together with the national-liberal politician and monetary expert Ludwig Bamberger, in founding a bank for foreign trade and was looking for a director. Delbrück proposed Siemens although he was entirely without experience until then in banking for the direction of Deutsche Bank, newly founded in 1870. And thus an experienced banking expert, Hermann Wallich, was appointed to work alongside Siemens. Siemens quickly realized that Deutsche Bank would only be able to achieve its goals, of facilitating and expanding the transaction of trade and payments abroad if it could draw upon a broad-based domestic banking business. Siemens created this basis starting in 1877 by initiating the deposit-taking business, which only the "Sparkassen" (public-sector savings banks) had systematically applied themselves to until that time, and thus Deutsche Bank secured a big lead for itself. This set an example the entire German banking industry was to follow. Siemens also advanced the deposit-taking business through his work on developing cheque payments. With its basis in domestic business, the bank was in a position to execute its original programme of foreign trade financing and was even able to set up branches in 1873 in London as well as found Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank in 1886 and Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in 1889. The success Deutsche Bank achieved in its domestic banking business under the direction of Georg von Siemens meant that already during the last quarter of the 19th century a number of branches had been set up in Germany (Bremen, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich), and close relationships had been established with other banks. Shareholdings were acquired in Württembergische Vereinsbank, Schlesischer Bankverein and Bergisch-Märkische Bank. In this manner, a banking group was created with which Siemens could also propose larger financing projects. Especially noteworthy among these was the involvement in creating the German electrical industry. In 1887 Deutsche Bank, together with Delbrück Leo & Co., underwrote the largest portion of the capital increase of Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft, which was simultaneously renamed Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG). Siemens was a member of the supervisory board of AEG for seven years. He also provided his experience to the undertakings of Siemens & Halske AG. Deutsche Bank was concurrently involved in a number of important electricity plants and tramway companies. Siemens also played a decisive role in working on the establishment of Berlin's tram and underground. Together with Max Steinthal, he was involved in the establishment of Mannesmannröhren-Werke (pipe mills). The relationships Georg von Siemens established for the newly founded Deutsche Bank in Germany soon led to more business abroad. The Bank für elektrische Unternehmungen, founded in Zürich at his initiation, managed the interests of German banks in international business. Georg von Siemens' activities in foreign undertakings reached its zenith with Deutsche Bank's participation in the financing of North American railways, in particular the Northern Pacific Railway Company. When this company collapsed in 1893 following misguided speculative activities, Siemens established a reorganization committee in New York for the owners of the railway bonds. Furthermore, Siemens initiated a company in Germany for the protection and promotion of German investments in the USA. It was founded in March 1890 and called the Deutsch-Amerikanische Treuhand-Gesellschaft (starting in 1892, Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft). Again and again, Siemens was involved in large-scale financing transactions that were to solidify the international reputation of Deutsche Bank, for example, by underwriting bonds for the city of Bucharest and the Principality of Bulgaria and by participating in the establishment of Banca Commerciale Italiana (1894). The foundation of the Anatolian Railway Company, brought about by Siemens in 1889, marked the beginning of Deutsche Bank's interests in the Orient and the Baghdad Railway, even if Siemens was very sceptical of this large-scale project for quite some time. For his services in Turkey, Siemens was accorded a heritable title of nobility in 1899. But Siemens' activities were not limited to his work for Deutsche Bank. For numerous years, he was a dedicated member of, among other organizations, the Association of German Banks, the Committee of the German Trade Board, and the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists. As a member of the Committee of the German Trade Board, he worked on the German law on cheques. As a member of the German Parliament, in which he was first a member of the national-liberal party and later the liberal-minded party, he expressed his views especially on issues concerning banking, the law on minting, the stock exchange tax, and in favour of the renewal of trade agreements. Slogans praising the patriotism holding sway during the period were strange to Siemens. He regarded Deutsche Bank as an institution with international operations not just with regard to the territorial expansion of its business, but also because of its cosmopolitan spirit. "When he joined Deutsche Bank in 1870, Siemens was from a totally different field, but he had a great deal of self-confidence and expansive plans, equipped with a great deal of energy. Furthermore, he was not a banker in the traditional sense, that is a private bankier liable with his own personal capital, but rather a simple employee - as one said at that time, a bank manager, that is a completely new type of banker, and as such he brought into this cultivated and tasteful world of private bankiers, who had founded the bank in the spring of 1870, an entirely new tone - in his speech as well - casual but also aggressive, and at the same time ironic and self-ironic". (Lothar Gall). At the end of his period of office thirty years later in 1900, Deutsche Bank was the largest bank in Germany, and on its way to becoming the largest in the world. Deutsche Bank had surpassed not only all of the private banks, but also the previously undisputed No. 1 among the stock corporation banks, Disconto-Gesellschaft, founded in 1851 by David Hansemann, as well as the competing credit institutions founded in 1870 and 1872, Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank.

more information:

Brought to Light - Documents pertaining to the history of Deutsche Bank      [1]      [2]     [3]

Milestones - Stories pertaining to the history of Deutsche Bank      [1]