the world of private banking

PRIVAtE BANKS AND INDUStRy 207
Shipping and railways
Considering Cologne’s long tradition as a trading city, it seems a matter of
course that the transport industry became one of the first fields of investment
for the Oppenheim Bank. In 1825, it belonged to the founders of the Preußisch-
Rheinische Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft (Prussian-Rhenish Steamship Company),
specializing in goods trade on the Rhine. About a decade later, Sal. Oppenheim
took part in establishing and financing some of the first major railway lines in
Germany, the first of which was the Rheinische Eisenbahn (Rhenish Railway
Company) established in 1837, linking Cologne with Aachen; on the Belgian side,
the railway ended in Antwerp. Only two years later, the company went through a
severe crisis triggered by speculation in railway shares, and it was only through
close cooperation between the Oppenheim Bank and the Belgian government
that the company could be saved. Geographically, the bank’s activities first of
all focused on the Rhineland, but soon broadened out to other parts of Germany,
notably the North and East, e.g. the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn (Cologne-Minden
Railway Company) as part of the highly important line to Berlin. After the major
railway lines in Germany had been established, the bank turned in the 1880s to
the funding of local lines, showing that investment in railways continued to be a
profitable business.
From the 1850s onwards, the Oppenheim Bank also engaged in financing foreign
railway lines, e.g. in Italy, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Romania and in Russia.
Its most important foreign commitment was its participation in the international
Gotthardbahn (Gotthard Railway) project linking central Europe and Italy.
Mining and heavy industry
This leading sector of industry became a major focus of interest for the Oppenheim
Bank as early as the 1830s. Its first commitments were centred in the region
around Aachen, which had a long-standing tradition of coal mining. There the
bank merged the numerous small coalmines operating on a local level into the
Vereinigungsgesellschaft für Steinkohlenbau im Wurmrevier, a company which
was one of the first to operate on a rational, profit-orientated capitalist philosophy
and gives an early example of horizontal concentration. A few years later, the
bank became active in zinc mining in the same area as co-founder and major
shareholder of the Stolberger Zink AG. It is important to note this company’s close
connection with French business partners: the top management was French, most
of the capital was raised on the French market and the company was quoted on the
Paris Stock Exchange.
G. Teichmann, ‘Das Bankhaus Oppenheim und die industrielle Entwicklung im
Aachener Revier (1836–1855)’, in M. Köhler and K. Ulrich (eds), Banken, Konjunktur
und Politik. Beiträge zur Geschichte deutscher Banken im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Essen,
1995), pp. 16–17.