Bank deutscher Länder

'Bank of the German States') was a central bank established in 1948 to serve West Germany, issuing the Deutsche Mark.

Thus, Land central banks (German: Landeszentralbanken) were created on 1 January 1947 in American-occupied Munich (for Bavaria), Stuttgart (for Württemberg-Baden), and Wiesbaden (for Hesse), followed in March by French-occupied Tübingen (for Württemberg-Hohenzollern), Freiburg im Breisgau (for South Baden), and Mainz (for Rhineland-Palatinate), then American-occupied Bremen on 1 April 1947, and eventually British-occupied Düsseldorf (for North Rhine-Westphalia), Hanover (for Lower Saxony), Kiel (for Schleswig-Holstein) and Hamburg by the Spring of 1948.

[2]: 327-330 In 1947, newly appointed U.S. Military Governor Lucius D. Clay decided, against directives from Washington, that Germany needed a central bank instead of a mere board bringing together the Landeszentralbanken for joint policy decisions.

An agreement on that concept was reached among the three Western occupying forces on 30 October 1947, resulting in the establishment of the Bank deutscher Länder on 1 March 1948,[2]: 330-331  initially formed by the Landeszentralbanken in the Bizone.

Even after the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in May 1949, the BdL remained subject to the control of the three Western Allied powers until 1951.