Historian Ralf Roth was commissioned by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF ) to research the historical events at Frankfurter Sparkasse up to 1945 to mark the bank’s 200th anniversary. He discovered that thousands of assets were withheld from Jewish account holders and expropriated after their deportation or flight. After the war, the Sparkasse never adequately faced up to its responsibilities.

The example of the Frankfurter Sparkasse shows once again that the German savings banks deliberately cooperated with the Nazi regime. The expropriated bank deposits were used to finance Nazi Germany’s war of extermination. The savings banks thus adapted to the Nazi system without resistance and contributed to the smooth running of economic life.

Quote from the historian Ralf Roth: “Anyone who participates in decision-making within the framework of a criminal system makes himself an accomplice”.

In the meantime, the Fritz Bauer Institute has been commissioned to investigate the history of Frankfurter Sparkasse during the Nazi era. The results of this study are still pending

The study commissioned by the German government on dormant assets (Social Impact Fund) also shows that the German savings banks have not sufficiently fulfilled their obligation to keep records of dormant assets and thus also of expropriated Jewish bank deposits (so-called “dormant accounts”); in this regard, all communication channels must be used by a bank to locate descendants of account holders who are entitled to inherit. It can be assumed that there are still several billion euros in “dormant accounts” in Germany.