ABSTRACT
The experiences drawn from the Kreditanstalt fUr Wiederaufbau's (KfW's) involvement in export finance and loans to India, both in terms of Cold War politics and financial requirement, called for an amendment and update of the existing laws. The changes in the wider political and economic situation in the second half of the 1950s necessitated such a move as well. Both of these requirements would lead to the KfW's establishment as West Germany's development aid bank in 1961. A draft from 24 January 1959 already featured the new and extended task of the Kreditanstalt very much as it would be cast in law two and a half years later. Not surprisingly it was the Auswartige Amt (AA) which took the lead in the legislative process since it was the ministry in charge of foreign trade policy and foreign aid and at the same time the one which would benefit most from the bank's new tasks.
