The old part of this building complex, which today houses the Bank’s Regional Office in Hesse, was once the domicile of the Bank deutscher Länder. And the establishment in 1948 of the newly founded German central bank in Frankfurt is widely seen as marking the start of Frankfurt’s emergence as Germany’s leading financial centre.
The establishment of Germany’s post-war central bank ignited a fierce debate among the English-speaking Allies. While the Americans preferred a decentralised central banking system rather like the Federal Reserve System, the British authorities were more in favour of a centralised set-up with a central bank in Hamburg. With hindsight, we now know that the British gave in on this particular point.