Work through the ages - still worried about the same things?
Automation, the pace of technological change, skilled labour shortage – all questions that are on our minds today, especially with regard to artificial intelligence. But are our concerns today really any different from those of the past? Take a look back in time.
Video: “Modern banking business” – Silent movie from 1927
Security center of an Italian bank at the end of the 1980s
Machines – do they replace us or help us?
For most people in the pre-industrial age, there was no distinction between where they worked and where they lived. Working from home was the norm. Offices came about later – as a counterpart to workshops and factories. And with the machines came the question: are they helping people do their work or taking it away from them, making people redundant? Are they ’friend or foe’? It was obviously a contentious issue as featured in the1927 science-fiction dystopian silent movie Metropolis.
As early as 1928, a major bank in Germany thought it had found the answer and printed the following quote in its staff magazine: "It is obvious that as machines are adopted in companies, it will soon be possible to distinguish between those who only use the machine and those who can make use of it." And the advertising clip “Modern banking business” from the same period gave viewers an idea of this new reality. The film ends with a scene showing an empty room with only machines at work. It beggars the question: have they driven people away or given them more time for other work or even more leisure time?
Foreign exchange department of a major German bank 1971
The pace of change
Imagine sitting at an office desk in 1924, getting up, returning and 50 years have passed. It would not have been too difficult to just carry on working. Granted, things may have changed in the background but the equipment would basically still have been the same: paper, pens, typewriter – perhaps now electric – and a telephone – still heavy and made of a synthetic plastic called Bakelite. And as far as office dress goes, for most men at least, the typical attire of shirt and tie would not have changed too much, either.
And what about fast forwarding another 50 years? No chance! In the 1980s at the latest, the desk now has a monitor on it and a fax machine next to it. Ten years later, emails replace letters, and desks and shelves – once brimming with reference books – are now empty; the internet becomes the fountain of knowledge from 1995 on. The pace of change is getting faster and faster. And now, back in 2024, the majority of men have even stopped wearing ties – especially when working from home.
And in another 50 years? The current pace of change suggests that in a mere ten years' time, many an accessory that we still consider an indispensable work tool today will have been resigned to the archives of history.
Booking room in a bank in West Berlin 1957
Skilled workers shortage – often alleviated by women
The financial sector was once a purely male domain. Around 1900, very few women worked in banks but change was on the horizon. It didn’t take long for some functions to be taken over entirely by women – telephone operators, for example.
The First World War was a turning point. With the sudden acute shortage of men in many countries and the subsequent period of inflation, great numbers of women start working in banks, mainly to operate the growing number of office machines as a result of increasing automation. Soon, though, women are also predominantly employed in secretarial departments and start having more to do with issues relating to the running of the business. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, more women than men lost their jobs. Later, with the onset of the Second World War, women – married or not – were called to work and, once again, there is a marked rise in the number of women working in offices. In order to close the gap in the number of skilled workers at times of crisis like these, companies and even the state called on women to join the labour pool. Initially, it was just about numbers but as society began to change, women started to bring a new quality to the workforce.
However, there was still a long way to go before women first entered management. At Deutsche Bank, Hannelore Winter became the first woman to run a main branch in 1971 and to be appointed to the Supervisory Board in the same year. In 1988, Ellen R. Schneider-Lenné became the first woman to join the Management Board of Deutsche Bank – indeed of any German big bank.
How Deutsche Bank preserves its history
Pictures make the past come alive – thanks to our archives, that's possible: For decades, the Historical Institute of Deutsche Bank has been critically examining the history of Deutsche Bank through its own and external research. To this end, it preserves historically important sources.
The Historical Society of Deutsche Bank e.V. has been bringing the history of banking and its political, economic and cultural environment closer to the general public since 1991.
Reinhard Frost
… is fascinated by historical data repositories around the world, including Deutsche Bank's own archives, where he works. Although the documents themselves are unchangeable, techniques for examining artifacts are constantly changing, each time revealing something new.
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