DARMSTADTER UND NATIONALBANK. The Bank is a merger of the Bank fur Handel and Industrie (generally known as the Darmstadter Bank) with the Nationalbank fur Deutschland. The amalgamation took place in 1922.
The Bank fur Handel and Industrie was founded in 1853 in Darmstadt. It was in intimate relationship with the most im portant firms and possessed a large number of branches.
The Nationalbank fur Deutschland was founded in 1881. In 1920, after having absorbed the Deutsche Nationalbank in Bremen and later the Holsten Bank in Neumunster, it turned its attention to branch banking. The Nationalbank fur Deutschland saw in its relationships with industrial enterprises the main support of its business, and by founding, or collaborating in the founding, of many important German enterprises it established a basis for financial and syndicate investment business.
The capital of the Darmstadter and Nationalbank in 1928 was 6o,000,000 Reichsmarks, and the open reserves (which were 40,000,00o Reichsmarks when the gold balance sheet was drawn up in 1924) were increased by io,000,000 in 1927 and by an additional 5,000,000 in 1928; the reserves amounting to 55,000,00o Reichsmarks.
The Darmstadter and Nationalbank is represented in the management of the most important industrial enterprises in Germany and is on the board of approximately i,000 companies. The Bank also has a number of foreign investments in other banks abroad. It founded, together with an international group, the "Internationale Bank to Amsterdam" with the object of carrying out international financial transactions.
In 1928 the Darmstadter and Nationalbank owned 143 bank buildings, had branches in approximately 120 towns. (A. SN.)