Staatsbank der DDR

In addition, the bank bought and sold financial securities and administered the purchase, sale and holding of precious metals for foreign exchange purposes.

Another key task of the State Bank (on which it expended considerable resources) was attempting to control the circulation of foreign exchange within the GDR.

As the GDR only granted visas to travel to the West in limited circumstances to those below pensionable age (e.g. for weddings, funerals and serious illness of close relatives, business-based attendance at international conferences and trade fairs), and then usually only for very short periods, this effectively “neutralised” the foreign exchange held in the accounts of all those under 65 years old, and limited the usefulness of larger sums to those aged 65 and older.

These were a chain of special shops that offered high quality East German goods (that were otherwise difficult to obtain without joining a long waiting list) at reasonable prices and otherwise unobtainable Western consumer goods (usually at near duty-free price levels) – they were accessible only to foreign tourists with hard currency and East German citizens with Forum checks.

The nominal currencies used for trading, international clearing and settlement purposes by this organisation were transfer roubles and gold reserves.

Following German reunification, the Dresdner Bank sought restitution of its protected neo-classical building of 1889 at the Bebelplatz, but eventually built its Berlin headquarters on Pariser Platz.