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In spring of 1938, the Seniorchef (leading share holder) of the private bank Mendelssohn & Co., Rudolf Löb, was told at the ministery of economics that in the near future, "Jewish" banks were not allowed to exist in Germany anymore. He was presented three ways of dealing with the situation: 1) a take-over by another bank, 2) the handing-over to other, "aryan", shareholders, 3) a liquidation. 1 and 2 would have been two variations of an "aryanization" which was typical at that time. Mendelssohn & Co. chose a combination of 1 and 3. Officially, the bank went into liquidation. From January 1st 1939 on, Mendelssohn & Co. was a bank "in liquidation". At the same time, they made a special deal with Deutsche Bank, in the result of which Deutsche Bank took over most of the assets and liabilities, as well as all "Aryan" customers and staff members - and payed nothing for it (although Mendelssohn & Co. was still a quite wealthy and important bank at that time). So: Nazi rulers put pressure on the bank, but the bank itself decided to go into liquidation (mainly to "protect the name") and to hand over the business to Deutsche Bank. The liquidation was not "done" by the Nazis. Source: Extensive article by W. Treue in Mendelssohn-Studien 1 (1972) as well as a lot of other more recent articles on the subject of "aryanization" of German banks between 1933 and 1945. The appropriate historic file is to be found at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. Sebastian Panwitz (talk) 18:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
