[2] In the same year, Adam Stegerwald commissioned Heinrich Brüning, later Chancellor of the Reich, to found the Vereinsbank für deutsche Arbeit AG in Berlin, where the headquarters of the General Association of Christian Trade Unions was also located.

In 1933, when the NSDAP seized power, the name was changed to National-Bank and a strategic reorientation as a regional bank for small and medium-sized enterprises took place.

[2] Essen's Gauleiter, Josef Terboven, installed his confidant and publishing director Wolfgang Müller-Clemm as controller in the bank.

The union shares were taken over by the Bank der deutschen Arbeit, which exercised a kind of holding function for the German Labour Front.

[2][4] In February 2016, National-Bank withdrew from the cities of Recklinghausen,[5] Hattingen[6] and Gladbeck[7] and reduced its branch network in Essen by two locations.