Transformation der Sparkassen in der SBZ/DDR (1945–1952)

Abstract Founded since the late 18th century, savings banks were marketed and perceived as political organizations, propagating social values such as thriftiness. Early on, communists like Karl Marx heavily criticized them as pillars of the bourgeois order. During the Third Reich, they expanded further and presented themselves as «the most völkisch banks». Despite this considerable baggage, the communist regime in East Germany regarded savings banks as valuable and wanted to harness their inherent potential for system-stabilizing. Re-founded locally immediately after the Second World War with heterogenous personnel, the process to transform savings banks into «democratic financial institutions» was complex, in many respects improvised, and it concentrated on personnel politics. The denazification occurred quite swiftly, and it was rather extensive and long-lasting – especially in comparison to West Germany. Denazification was of course connected to a counter-politicization, but the processes were not as closely linked in banks and in the financial sector in general as they were in other areas more central to the authority of the emerging dictatorial regime. Among the most important secondary effects were a de-professionalization and a feminization of the staff. The latter soon reached such dimensions that it redefined the traditionally male dominated banking business as «women’s work».