Austrian Banking Between Two Great Depressions: The Creditanstalt from the 1870s to the 1930s

The history of the Creditanstalt (CA) during the eight decades between 1855 (when the bank was founded as the k.k. privilegierte Österreichische Credit-Anstalt für Handel und Gewerbe) and the 1930s (when it failed and had to be reorganized) can clearly be divided into two great periods: The first (and successful) one extends until World War I, thus covering the last part of the ‘long’ nineteenth century. The second one spans the relatively short phase from the break up of the Habsburg Monarchy until the dramatic events, which started with the collapse of the Boden-CreditAnstalt (BCA) in 1929 and reached their height with the crisis of 1931 and the big bank fusion of 1934.