In the 1920s, the. At the end of the nineteenth century, municipalities started founding savings banks and assuming liability for their liabilities. The first municipal savings bank was established in 1818 by the city of berlin, and in 1821 the oldest savings bank in bavaria opened in nurnberg. This first rough founding phase also saw the emergence of the originally independent savings bank of the city of herzogenaurach, which this year celebrates its 175th anniversary. Celebrated its founding anniversary.
"You can tell the rank of a classic by the amount of dust on its books", once bob hope remarked quite adequately. According to this mabstab, a collection of documents that by chance found its way into the herzogenaurach city archives certainly has the makings of a true classic. The oldest surviving savings books of the herzogenaurach savings bank are also included in the collection of documents on the history of the savings bank. The number 75 was issued on 26. January 1898 created for the children of the clothier johann dummer.
To relieve the poor
With the decision to establish a municipal savings bank, the town fathers of aurachstadt had made a decision on 18. June 1837 a decision was taken that was not entirely altruistic. The magistrate hoped that the demand for private provision would ease the burden on the city's poor relief fund, which was under great strain during the crisis-ridden years of the beginning industrialization in herzogenaurach. "The poor should not waste their wages on vain finery and trinkets", the city council wished "craftsmen, servants and other impecunious persons should be given the opportunity to safely invest their savings at interest". However, the savings banks proved to be only partially suitable as an institution for fighting poverty. For anyone who was so poor that he could not earn his own living could not save either. Only with the new foundation of the savings association "unter uns" in 1882, a so-called pfennigsparkasse, even small savers were given the opportunity to save a minimum amount of money.
The potential customers of the town savings banks were not the "poor", but all those who have an income above the minimum subsistence level. Thus, the first deposits, for which a constant interest rate of three percent was paid for more than eight decades, already far exceeded the minimum investment of one guilder. The young journeyman tanner matthias glas was the first to make a deposit of 50 gulden (fl) on the 14th day of the bank's opening. November the first customer, the unmarried katharina greiner from hammerbach, daughter of a day laborer, brought 53 fl and the journeyman baker georg wisnet from niederndorf the considerable amount of 300 fl to the town treasury. At the beginning, the investors received "savings bank certificates", on which the city assured the saver that he would receive his deposit back at the appointed time, including the interest accrued up to that time. The classic savings book did not become established in herzogenaurach until the articles of association were changed in 1898.
Members of the urban and rural middle classes used the savings banks to a great extent – not only to invest their savings securely, but also to borrow money. Such a loan was granted to kunigunde lumaier, an almost penniless widow who had to borrow the small sum of 6 fl in 1839 to buy clothes for her son, who was starting out on his journey as a journeyman craftsman. The agreed repayment within a year, together with a five percent interest rate, made them a thing of the past. Coarser amounts were only available on collateral; for mortgages, house or land was mortgaged. Losses of the savings bank, which was administered by city officials, were transferred to the kammereikasse if they could not be covered from the savings bank's surpluses. The savings were invested in high-interest government securities, bonds and government bonds for railroad financing, and during the first world war also in war bonds.
The crisis strikes
The loans of the savings bank ensured that the savings capital of the population was preferably used for the financing of local economic cycles. Since their funds flowed primarily to craftsmen's businesses, entrepreneurs and private housing construction, they nevertheless played a significant role in the enormous economic growth of the time. With the expansion of its business, the savings bank became more and more bankable.
The first world war and the post-war inflation, which resulted in the "hyperinflation culminating in the "savings miracle" of 1923, strongly affected the savings and mortgage business. The subsequent currency reforms – first came the pension mark and then the reichsmark – culminated in the "savings miracle" of 1923 a short period of consolidation. But in the fall of 1928, when the "golden twenties" began when the savings banks in herzogenaurach came to an abrupt end, they were put under severe pressure. The bankruptcy of several shoe factories in herzogenaurach was linked to a global economic crisis of unprecedented proportions.
The bankruptcy of hochstadt's "fortuna, the loan obtained from the people of herzogenaurach with virtually no collateral meant the end of the company's independence, which was only very reluctantly relinquished. "There would definitely be bad blood if we were to give up our independence", was the unanimous opinion of the town councils at the time, but in 1929 mayor franz josef schurr had little to oppose the offer of a merger with the coarse and deposit-rich stadtsparkasse in nearby erlangen. Our own deposits have long been insufficient to meet the credit needs of local entrepreneurs. The proudly founded city savings bank became one of many branches of the erlanger sparkasse.