Studies on social behaviour, habitus, values and norms of bankers are a desideratum of research. Therefore, it is only justifiable with reservations to define the banker more closely as a social type. This contribution attempts to answer the question of the extent to which German bankers behaved differently from a system of norms specific to them during the major financial crises of 1931 and 2008/09. Were there specific constraints for this? Or was it rather just the failure of a few important players in the financial markets that significantly intensified the intensity of the crisis? Were bank customers or even politicians deliberately misled? Or were the bankers themselves deceived and therefore wrong? Answering these questions provides an indication of the extent to which prominent bankers can be held responsible for the causes and course of the last two major financial crises.
Harald Wixforth, Bielefeld / Bremen