Between Strategy and Ideology The Cooperative Branch of the Dresdner Bank from the Financial Crisis 1931 to the Take-Over by the Deutsche Zentralgenossenschaftskasse 1939

Since 1901 the Dresdner Bank ran a department to finance cooperatives. After the financial crisis in summer 1931 when the Dresdner Bank was faced with bankruptcy the success story of this department seemed to come to an end. But when the Nazis formed their first government in 1933 it was in the center of ideological debates, which, moreover, guaranteed the business of the branch. In 1939, however, when the Dresdner Bank followed a new strategy due to the territorial expansion of the Nazi regime in Europe, it lost its significance for the business strategy. So, it was decided to sell the department to the Deutsche Zentralgenossenschaftskasse, for a long time the great rival in financing German cooperatives.