the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
to the financing of industry as early as the first decade of the nineteenth century
and for many years had this field almost exclusively to themselves. It was a highrisk
business which other banks for a number of reasons felt reluctant to embark
on. Among the handful of Cologne bankers active in venture-capital lending, the
Oppenheim Bank was by far the most active and creative, and thus helped to shape
emerging capitalism and industry in Germany.
For the scholar of banking history this means that the Oppenheim Archive is a
must if doing research on the industrialization process in Germany between 1825
and 1870. The archive, formally established in 1939 as one of the first banking
archives in Germany, was not initially supposed to be used by outsiders, but to
serve as a quick-and-easy means of information for members of the Oppenheim
family. The establishment of the archive came at a time when the family was
under high pressure from the Nazi regime because of its Jewish ancestry. The
archive therefore became a symbol of the family’s unbroken sense of tradition
and its will to persevere. As the main structuring element, the easily accessible
principle of pertinence was chosen while priority in contents was laid on the great
achievements of the bank in the nineteenth century, which is why these records
still form the bulk and core of the accessible material.
The Specific Commitments of Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. during the Process
of Industrialization
By and large, the bank showed commercial interest in all branches of industrialization.
The archival records pertaining to these activities are arranged in files devoted to the
different companies. In addition, there is the business and private correspondence
of the two Oppenheim brothers who ran the bank at that time.
There are four main headings under which commitments can be grouped:
1.
2.
3.
4.
shipping and railways
mining and heavy industry
the insurance business
banking.
H. Pohl, ‘Das deutsche Bankwesen (1806–1848)’, Deutsche Bankengeschichte, ed.
im Auftrag des Instituts für bankhistorische Forschung, vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main, 1982),
pp. 18–33.
For further information about the Oppenheim archive, see G. Teichmann, ‘Archive
Survey: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie., Cologne’, in Financial History Review, vol. 1, 1994,
pp. 69–78.