Lessons from the Credit-Anstalt Collapse

In May 1931, a Viennese bank named Credit-Anstalt failed. Founded by the famous Rothschild banking family in 1855, Credit-Anstalt was one of the most important financial institutions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its failure came as a shock because it was considered impregnable. The bank not only made loans; it acquired ownership stakes in all kinds of companies throughout the sprawling empire, from sugar producers to the new automobile makers. Its headquarters city, Vienna, was a place of wealth and splendor, famous for its opera, balls, chocolate, psychoanalysis, and the extravagant architecture of the Ringstrasse. The fall of Credit-Anstalt—and the dominoes it helped topple across Continental Europe and the confidence it shredded as far away as the U.S.—wasn't just the failure of a bank: It was a failure of civilization.

Once again, Europe's banking system, and by extension its social fabric, is threatened by bad loans. What had been slow-moving fiscal disasters in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have gathered speed in recent weeks despite rescue packages designed to calm markets and prevent spreading the contagion to Spain, Belgium, and beyond. Portugal's 10-year borrowing costs hit a record 9.3 percent on Apr. 20, up from 7.4 percent just a month before, even as authorities met in Lisbon on an €80 billion ($116 billion) financing package. The higher that creditors drive up interest rates, the more unaffordable the debt becomes—creating the conditions for the very failure they fear. "All of the rescue packages don't really ensure that we can escape this adverse feedback loop that these countries are being trapped in," Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-income strategy at Frankfurt-based Commerzbank (CRZBY), told Bloomberg Television on Apr. 19.