Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Felix Hecht’s Bankwesen und Bankpolitik in den süddeutschen Staaten 1819–1875 (1882)

Böhm-Bawerk’s brief review assesses Hecht’s contribution to the historical documentation of German banking. He describes the book’s three divisions as relatively independent accounts of the origins and activities of major banks in Württemberg, Baden, and Hessen-Darmstadt. His central distinction concerns historical purpose: Hecht supplies specialized source material for a future synthesis.

Wie schon die formelle Anordnung des Stoffes erkennen lässt und wie auch vom Verfasser in der Vorrede ausdrücklich hervorgehoben wird, wollte derselbe nicht so sehr ein zusammenhängendes Geschichtswerk, als vielmehr ein specialgeschichtliches Quellenwerk bringen.

English translation: As the formal arrangement of the material already makes evident, and as the author also expressly emphasizes in the preface, he wished to furnish not so much a connected work of history as rather a source-work of special history.

Böhm-Bawerk judges this deliberately limited undertaking successful, emphasizing its careful use of valuable official sources. Its broader significance lies in complementing Poschinger’s research on Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria, thereby extending the documentary basis for a unified history of German banking.

The review then moves from scholarly utility to the comparative reflection that banking history can provoke:

Besonders frappirend wird unter den Leseindrücken der Contrast hervortreten, in dem die Schwerfälligkeit und übertriebene Vorsicht der Gründungen von dazumal zur Leichtigkeit und leider! oft auch zum Leichtsinn der heutigen Gründungen steht — ein Contrast, der jeden denkenden Leser unwillkürlich zur Ziehung von Parallelen zwischen einst und jetzt anregen wird.

English translation: Among the impressions left by the reading, the contrast will emerge as particularly striking in which the ponderousness and exaggerated caution of the foundings of that day stand to the ease and, alas! often also to the frivolity of the foundings of today — a contrast which will involuntarily prompt every thinking reader to draw parallels between then and now.

The contrast criticizes both earlier excessive caution and contemporary recklessness; historical comparison provides a check on assumptions of progress. Böhm-Bawerk closes by praising the statistical tables for translating institutional activity into numerical form through abundant, skillfully arranged material. The review thus joins documentary scholarship, critical comparison, and quantitative evidence as complementary grounds for valuing Hecht’s work.