title: Seven Summits

text: The concept Richard Bass and his climbing partner Frank Wells were pursuing was to be the first to stand atop the highest mountain on each continent. They pursued this goal as they defined it, climbing Aconcagua for South America, McKinley (now Denali) for North America, Kilimanjaro for Africa, Elbrus for Europe, Vinson for Antarctica, Kosciuszko for Australia, and finally Everest for Asia.


title: Seven Summits

text: Using the largest tectonic plates, Asia and Europe could be grouped as Eurasia, and the very large Pacific Plate would have Mauna Kea as its highest mountain. Puncak Jaya is actually on the Maoke Plate, while Mount Wilhelm is on the Woodlark Plate, both of which are usually grouped with the larger Australian Plate. If not, then Mount Kosciuszko would revert to being the highest of that plate (see also list of highest points of Oceanian countries).


title: Seven Summits

text: The highest mountain in mainland Australia is Mount Kosciuszko, above sea level. However, the highest mountain on the Australian continent, which includes Australia and New Guinea, is Puncak Jaya, above sea level, in the Indonesian province of Papua and on the island of New Guinea, which shares the Sahul continental shelf with Australia. Mount Kosciuszko is easier to climb, being a four-hour, grade 3 return walk from the nearest car park, while Puncak Jaya is classed as a mountaineering expedition.


title: Seven Summits

text: Some sources claim Mount Wilhelm () in Papua New Guinea's Bismarck Range (on the island of New Guinea, like Puncak Jaya) as the highest mountain on the Australian continent, on account of Indonesia being a part of Asia (see list of Southeast Asian mountains, which includes Puncak Jaya and other mountains in Western New Guinea, Indonesia). However, such a definition is political, not geophysical, and would mean that the western part of New Guinea changed continents in 1969.


title: Seven Summits

text: In terms of Australia as a country, Mawson Peak () is higher than Kosciuszko. However, it is not located in Oceania, but on Heard Island, a small offshore island in the southern Indian Ocean. If excluding the island of New Guinea, then Aoraki / Mount Cook on the South Island of New Zealand is the highest mountain in Australasia at .


title: Seven Summits

text: Sources that list Mount Wilhelm as highest point in Oceania or show boundaries putting Puncak Jaya in Asia include: the United Nations, 7 Continent Summits, World Atlas, the CIA World Factbook, Canada Atlas, and Papua New Guinea PNG Trekking.


title: Seven Summits

text: The generally accepted highest summit in Europe is Mount Elbrus () in the Caucasus, appearing on both the Bass and Messner lists. However, because the location of the boundary between Asia and Europe is not universally agreed upon, its inclusion in Europe is disputed: if the Kuma–Manych Depression is used as the geological border between Asia and Europe, the Caucasus and Elbrus lie wholly in Asia. If the Greater Caucasus watershed is used instead, Elbrus' peaks are wholly in Europe, albeit close to the border with Asia. Mont Blanc (), lying on the border between France and Italy in the Graian Alps, is seen by some to be the highest mountain in Europe.


title: Seven Summits

text: Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America. The Caribbean Plate and the Panama Plate, both of which share geological processes with the North American continent, have their own highest mountain peaks:


title: Seven Summits

text: Aconcagua is the highest mountain peak in South America. The Altiplano Plate and the North Andes Plate, both of which share geological processes with the South American continent, have their own highest mountain peaks:


title: Seven Summits

text: The first Seven Summits list as postulated by Bass (the Bass or Kosciusko list) chose the highest mountain of mainland Australia, Mount Kosciuszko (), to represent the Australian continent's highest summit. Reinhold Messner postulated another list (the Messner or Carstensz list), replacing Mount Kosciuszko with Indonesia's Puncak Jaya, or Carstensz Pyramid (). Neither the Bass nor the Messner list includes Mont Blanc. From a mountaineering point of view, the Messner list is the more challenging one. Climbing Carstensz Pyramid has the character of an expedition, whereas the ascent of Kosciuszko is an easy hike. Indeed, Patrick Morrow used this argument to defend his choice to adhere to the Messner list, "Being a climber first and a collector second, I felt strongly that Carstensz Pyramid, the highest mountain in Australasia ... was a true mountaineer’s objective."


title: Seven Summits

text: The mountaineering challenge to climb the Seven Summits is traditionally based on either the Bass or the Messner list. (It is assumed that most of the mountaineers who have completed the "Seven Summits" would have climbed Mont Blanc as well.) As of January 2010, approximately 275 climbers climbed all seven of the peaks from either the Bass or the Messner list; about 30% of those have climbed all of the eight peaks required to complete both lists.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1956, William D. Hackett (1918–1999), an American mountaineer, reached the top of five continents. He climbed Denali (then known as Mount McKinley) (1947), Aconcagua (1949), Kilimanjaro (1950), Kosciuszko (1956) and Mont Blanc (1956). In that time, Mont Blanc was considered to be the highest mountain of the European continent. Hackett made an attempt to climb Mount Vinson and obtained a permit for Mount Everest in 1960, but due to several circumstances (frostbite, lack of funds, etc.), he never made it to more than five summits.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1970, the Japanese mountaineer and adventurer Naomi Uemura (1941-1984) was the first person to reach five of the Seven Summits including Mount Everest. He climbed Mont Blanc (1966), Kilimanjaro (1966), Aconcagua (1968), Mount Everest (1970 solo) and Denali (1970 solo). After the first solo trip to the North Pole (1978), he planned to go on his own to Antarctica to climb Mount Vinson. In preparation for the Antarctica expedition, he did a solo winter ascent of Denali (1984). On the descent he disappeared in a winter storm.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1978, the Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner was the first person to reach six of the Seven Summits (1971 Puncak Jaya, 1974 Aconcagua, 1976 Mount McKinley (now Denali), 1978 Kilimanjaro, 1978 Mount Everest). For Messner, Carstensz Pyramid (Puncak Jaya) was the highest peak in Australia (Messner list), but in 1983, he climbed Mount Kosciuszko to also satisfy the other geographic definition of Australia. In the same year, Messner climbed Mount Elbrus and declared that it was the true highest peak of Europe. This definition was quickly accepted by others in the mountaineering community. Finally in 1986, he climbed Mount Vinson. At that time, he was only the fifth person to reach the Seven Summits.In 1985, Richard Bass, a businessman and amateur mountaineer, was the first man to climb all Seven Summits. In only one year, 1983, he climbed six peaks: Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus, Mount Vinson and Mount Kosciuszko. All of these climbs he did together with his companion Frank Wells and different mountain guides. Beginning in 1983, Bass and Wells made various guided attempts to climb Mount Everest, the highest and most difficult peak in the list. On 30 April 1985, Bass reached the summit of Mount Everest in a party without Wells, guided by the American professional mountaineer David Breashears. He then co-authored the book "Seven Summits", which covered the undertaking. Later in 1985, American mountaineer Gerry Roach became the second person to climb the Seven Summits.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1986, the Canadian mountaineer Patrick Morrow became the first man to climb the Seven Summits in the Carstensz version (Messner list). He climbed Denali (1977), Aconcagua (1981), Mount Everest (1982), Kilimanjaro (1983), Mount Kosciuszko (1983), Mount Vinson (1985), Mount Elbrus (1985) and finally the Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid) on May 7, 1986. Morrow was also the first to complete both lists (Bass and Messner).


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1990, Rob Hall and Gary Ball became the first to complete the "Seven Summits" in seven months. Using the Bass list, they started with Everest on 10 May 1990, and finished with Vinson on 12 December 1990, hours before the seven-month deadline.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 1992, Junko Tabei became the first woman to complete the "Seven Summits". Mary "Dolly" Lefever became the first American woman to climb the "Seven Summits" on March 11, 1993, when she climbed Australia's Mount Kosciuszko. Earlier in 1993, she had become the oldest surviving woman to have reached the summit of Mount Everest; she was 47 years old. In January 1996, Chris Haver became the first American to climb and ski all seven summits. Yasuko Namba was famous in her native Japan for becoming the second Japanese woman to reach all of the Seven Summits including Everest, where she died during the storm of May 1996 during her descent.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 2000, Croatian mountaineer Stipe Božić completed the Seven Summits. In May 2002, Susan Ershler and her husband, Phil, became the first married couple to climb the "Seven Summits" together. The first person to complete Seven Summits without the use of supplemental oxygen on Mount Everest is Reinhold Messner. Miroslav Caban is the second climber to finish the project without supplemental oxygen on Everest (finished in 2005 with Carstensz). Ed Viesturs also summitted all peaks without supplemental oxygen. Between 2002 and 2007, Austrian climber Christian Stangl completed the Seven Summits (Messner list), climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen, and reported a record total ascent time from respective base camp to summit of 58 hours and 45 minutes.


title: Seven Summits

text: On 17 May 2006, Rhys Jones became the youngest person to complete the Seven Summits (Bass list) at the age of exactly 20 years. Notable climbers who had previously been the youngest to complete the Seven Summits include Rob Hall in 1990 and David Keaton in 1995. In May 2007, Samantha Larson completed the seven at the age of 18 years and 220 days (she is still the youngest woman to have climbed the Seven Summits). Johnny Strange finished climbing the summits at the age of 17 years and 161 days in June 2009. On 26 May 2011, at 6:45 Nepali time, Geordie Stewart became the youngest Briton to complete the Seven Summits at the age of 22 years and 21 days. In 2009-10, Indian mountaineer Krushnaa Patil made a bid for the fastest woman to complete the challenge; she fell short of the challenge when, in May 2009, her seventh and final summit bid on Denali was halted by her guide's illness. George Atkinson then became the youngest person in the world to complete the round aged 16 years 362 days. On 24 December 2011, the record was once again beaten, by American Jordan Romero, who completed the challenge at the age of 15 years, 5 months and 12 days by climbing Vinson.


title: Seven Summits

text: In October 2006, Kit Deslauriers became the first person to have skied down (parts of) all seven peaks (Bass list). Three months later, in January 2007, Swedes Olof Sundström and Martin Letzter completed their Seven Summits skiing project by skiing down (parts of) Carstensz Pyramid, thus becoming the first and only people to have skied both lists.


title: Seven Summits

text: Indian mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu also had the eminence of setting a Guinness world record by surmounting the Seven Summits in 172 days in 2006. The world record for completion of the Messner and Bass list was 136 days, by Danish climber Henrik Kristiansen in 2008. Kristiansen completed the summits in the following order: Vinson on Jan 21, Aconcagua on Feb 6, Kosciuszko on Feb 13, Kilimanjaro on Mar 1, Carstensz Pyramid on Mar 14, Elbrus on May 8, Everest on May 25, spending just 22 days on the mountain (normally, expeditions take up to two months acclimatizing, laying ropes, etc.) and finally Denali on June 5, beating Ian McKeever's previous record by 20 days. Vern Tejas set the new record for the same, in 134 days. Tejas began with summiting Vinson on 18 January 2010 and ended with summiting Denali on May 31. This was Tejas' ninth time to complete the Bass Seven Summits.


title: Seven Summits

text: In January 2010, the Spanish climber Carlos Soria Fontán, at the age of 71, completed the seven summits (Messner list) after reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro. He had climbed the first one in 1968. On 23 May 2010, AC Sherpa summited Mount Everest as his last and final conquest of the Seven Summits (Bass list). In doing this, he set a new record by climbing the Seven Summits within 42 climbing days. Additionally, when climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (via Marangu) he summited in just 16 hours and 37 minutes, easily beating the previous record of 18 hours.


title: Seven Summits

text: As of 24 December 2011, it is reported that only 118 people have climbed the Seven Summits if one assumes "full" completion of the quest requires climbing the "Eight Summits" across both the Bass and Messner lists (climbing both Carstensz Pyramid and Kosciusko in addition to the other six "undisputed" summits such as Everest). 231 persons have climbed the Messner list, while 234 have completed the Bass list. 348 have done either the Bass or Messner list.


title: Seven Summits

text: In 2013, Vanessa O'Brien became the fastest female to complete the Seven Summits (including Carstensz Pyramid), finishing in 10 months. Cason Crane became the first openly gay man to climb the Seven Summits. On 21 November 2013, Werner Berger (Canada, ex-South African), at the age of 76 years and 129 days, became the oldest person in the world to complete the Seven Summits after a 6-day jungle trek to Carstensz Pyramid. In 2013, Cheryl and Nikki Bart became the first mother-daughter team to complete the Seven Summits.


title: Seven Summits

text: On 16 December 2014, Tashi and Nungshi Malik became the world's first twins and siblings to complete the Seven Summits (Messner list). Colin O'Brady broke the record for the Messner and Bass lists in 131 days, summiting Vinson on 17 January 2016 and completing with Denali on 27 May 2016.


title: Seven Summits

text: The youngest person to complete both the Seven Summits and the Volcanic Seven Summits is Satyarup Siddhanta from India. He completed the feat on 15 Jan 2019 after summitting Mt Sidley, Antarctica at the age of 35 years 261 days breaking the record of Daniel Bull from Australia . He was also the first Indian to accomplish the feat and created a Guinness world record.


title: Seven Summits

text: On 6 January 2018, Chris Bombardier reached the summit of Mount Vinson, becoming the first person with hemophilia to complete the Seven Summits (Messner list). On 23 June 2018, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado reached the summit of Denali, becoming the first openly gay woman to complete the Seven Summits (including Carstensz Pyramid). On 4 January 2019, Arunima Sinha reached the summit of Mount Vinson, becoming the first female amputee to complete the Seven Summits (including Carstensz Pyramid).


title: Seven Summits

text: Alpinism author Jon Krakauer (1997) wrote in "Into Thin Air" that it would be a bigger challenge to climb the second-highest peak of each continent, known as the Seven Second Summits – a feat that was not accomplished until January 2013. This discussion had previously been published in an article titled "The Second Seven Summits" in Rock & Ice Magazine (#77) authored by the mountaineer and Seven Summits completer David Keaton. This is especially true for Asia, as K2 (8,611 m) demands greater technical climbing skills than Everest (8,848 m), while altitude-related factors such as the thinness of the atmosphere, high winds and low temperatures remain much the same. Some of those completing the seven ascents are aware of the magnitude of the challenge. In 2000, in a foreword to Steve Bell et al., "Seven Summits", Morrow opined "[t]he only reason Reinhold [Messner] wasn’t the first person to complete the seven was that he was too busy gambolling up the 14 tallest mountains in the world."


title: Seven Summits

text: Bill Allen, who completed the Seven Summits twice, said that getting to the summit never gets old. The 8000ers are all in East Asia; Nepal, China, India and Pakistan in a more narrow region of Earth, and many of the climbs are quite dangerous with several climbers dying short of completing all 14. Another problem is that while there are 14 main summits, there are additional sub-peaks over 8000 m. Indeed, in 2013, authorities were considering officially recognizing some additional peaks as 8000ers.


title: Seven Summits

text: One idea is to climb shorter peaks rather than the highest such as with the Seven Second Summits and Seven Third Summits. The Explorers Grand Slam includes the Seven Summits and both poles. Like the number one list, the number two and three lists is subject to the Bass vs. Messner geophysical/political dichotomy.


title: Seven Summits

text: A Seven Second Summits collection was first achieved in January 2013 by Christian Stangl. It is considered to be a more difficult mountaineering challenge than the standard Seven Summits, even if the peaks are lower.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1870 and grew through multiple acquisitions, including Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929 (as a consequence of which it was known from 1929 to 1937 as Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft), Bankers Trust in 1998, and Deutsche Postbank in 2010.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: As of 2018, the bank's network spanned 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. As of 2021, Deutsche Bank was the 21st largest bank in the world by total assets and 93rd in the world by market capitalization. It is a component of the DAX stock market index, and often referred to as the largest German banking institution even though the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe comes well ahead in terms of combined assets. Deutsche Bank has been designated as a global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board since 2011.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank is a universal bank with four major divisions: Investment Bank, Corporate Bank, Private Bank and Asset Management (DWS). Its investment banking operations often command substantial deal flow.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: According to the "New Yorker", Deutsche Bank has long had an "abject" reputation among major banks, as it has been involved in major scandals across different issue areas.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank was founded on 1870 in Berlin as a specialist bank for financing foreign trade and promoting German exports. It subsequently played a large part in developing Germany's financial services industry, as its business model focused on providing finance to industrial customers. The bank's statute was adopted on 22 January 1870, and on 10 March 1870 the Prussian government granted it a banking license. The statute laid great stress on foreign business:


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Three of the founders were Georg Siemens, whose father's cousin had founded Siemens and Halske; Adelbert Delbrück and Ludwig Bamberger. Prior to the founding of Deutsche Bank, German importers and exporters were dependent upon British and French banking institutions in the world markets—a serious handicap in that German bills were almost unknown in international commerce, generally disliked and subject to a higher rate of a discount than English or French bills.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The bank's first domestic branches, inaugurated in 1871 and 1872, were opened in Bremen and Hamburg. Its first oversea-offices opened in Shanghai in 1872 and London in 1873 followed by South American offices between 1874 and 1886. The branch opening in London, after one failure and another partially successful attempt, was a prime necessity for the establishment of credit for the German trade in what was then the world's money center.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Major projects in the early years of the bank included the Northern Pacific Railroad in the US and the Baghdad Railway (1888). In Germany, the bank was instrumental in the financing of bond offerings of steel company Krupp (1879) and introduced the chemical company Bayer to the Berlin stock market.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The second half of the 1890s saw the beginning of a new period of expansion at Deutsche Bank. The bank formed alliances with large regional banks, giving itself an entry into Germany's main industrial regions. Joint ventures were symptomatic of the concentration then under way in the German banking industry. For Deutsche Bank, domestic branches of its own were still something of a rarity at the time; the Frankfurt branch dated from 1886 and the Munich branch from 1892, while further branches were established in Dresden and Leipzig in 1901.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In addition, the bank rapidly perceived the value of specialist institutions for the promotion of foreign business. Gentle pressure from the Foreign Ministry played a part in the establishment of Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank in 1886 and the stake taken in the newly established Deutsch-Asiatische Bank three years later, but the success of those companies showed that their existence made sound commercial sense.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1919, the bank purchased the state's share of Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa). In 1926, the bank assisted in the merger of Daimler and Benz.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The bank merged with other local banks in 1929 to create Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft. In 1937, the company name changed back to Deutsche Bank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: After Adolf Hitler came to power, instituting the Third Reich, Deutsche Bank dismissed its three Jewish board members in 1933. In subsequent years, Deutsche Bank took part in the aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses, provided the owners of “aryanized” businesses were in the know about their Jewish status beforehand; according to its own historians, the bank was involved in 363 such confiscations by November 1938. In 1938, German bank Mendelssohn & Co. was acquired. During the war, Deutsche Bank incorporated other banks that fell into German hands during the occupation of Eastern Europe. Deutsche Bank provided banking facilities for the Gestapo and loaned the funds used to build the Auschwitz camp and the nearby IG Farben facilities.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: During World War II, Deutsche Bank became responsible for managing the Bohemian Union Bank in Prague, with branches in the Protectorate and in Slovakia, the Bankverein in Yugoslavia (which has now been divided into two financial corporations, one in Serbia and one in Croatia), the Albert de Barry Bank in Amsterdam, the National Bank of Greece in Athens, the Creditanstalt-Bankverein in Austria and Hungary, the Deutsch-Bulgarische Kreditbank in Bulgaria, and Banca Comercială Română "(The Romanian Commercial Bank)" in Bucharest. It also maintained a branch in Istanbul, Turkey.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1999, Deutsche Bank confirmed officially that it had been involved in the Auschwitz camp. In December 1999, Deutsche, along with other major German companies, contributed to a US$5.2 billion compensation fund following lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors; U.S. officials had threatened to block Deutsche Bank's $10 billion purchase of Bankers Trust, a major American bank, if it did not contribute to the fund. The history of Deutsche Bank during the Second World War has since been documented by independent historians commissioned by the Bank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the Allied authorities, in 1948, ordered Deutsche Bank's break-up into regional banks. These regional banks were later consolidated into three major banks in 1952: Norddeutsche Bank AG; Süddeutsche Bank AG; and Rheinisch-Westfälische Bank AG. In 1957, these three banks merged to form Deutsche Bank AG with its headquarters in Frankfurt.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1959, the bank entered retail banking by introducing small personal loans. In the 1970s, the bank pushed ahead with international expansion, opening new offices in new locations, such as Milan (1977), Moscow, London, Paris, and Tokyo. In the 1980s, this continued when the bank paid U$603 million in 1986 to acquire Banca d'America e d'Italia.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1972, the bank established its "Fiduciary Services Division" which provides support to its private wealth division.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: At 8:30 am on 30 November 1989, Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of Deutsche Bank, was killed when a car that he was in exploded while he was traveling in the Frankfurt suburb of Bad Homburg. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the blast.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1989, the first steps towards creating a significant investment-banking presence were taken with the acquisition of Morgan, Grenfell & Co., a UK-based investment bank which was renamed Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in 1994. In 1995 to greatly expand into international investments and money management, Deutsche Bank hired Edson Mitchell, a risk specialist from Merrill Lynch, who hired two other former Merrill Lynch risk specialists Anshu Jain and William S. Broeksmit. By the mid-1990s, the buildup of a capital-markets operation had got underway with the arrival of a number of high-profile figures from major competitors. Ten years after the acquisition of Morgan Grenfell, the US firm Bankers Trust was added. Bankers Trust suffered losses during the 1998 Russian financial crisis since it had a large position in Russian government bonds, but avoided financial collapse by being acquired by Deutsche Bank for $10 billion in November 1998. On 4 June 1999, Deutsche Bank merged its Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Bankers Trust to became Deutsche Asset Management (DAM) with Robert Smith as the CEO. This made Deutsche Bank the fourth-largest money management firm in the world after UBS, Fidelity Investments, and the Japanese post office's life insurance fund. At the time, Deutsche Bank owned a 12% stake in DaimlerChrysler but United States banking laws prohibit banks from owning industrial companies, so Deutsche Bank received an exception to this prohibition through 1978 legislation from Congress.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche continued to build up its presence in Italy with the acquisition in 1993 of Banca Popolare di Lecco from Banca Popolare di Novara for about $476 million. In 1999, it acquired a minority interest in Cassa di Risparmio di Asti.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks the Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan, formerly Bankers Trust Plaza, was heavily damaged by the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Demolition work on the 39-story building continued for nearly a decade, and was completed in early 2011.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In October 2001, Deutsche Bank was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This was the first NYSE listing after interruption due to 11 September attacks. The following year, Josef Ackermann became CEO of Deutsche Bank and served as CEO until 2012 when he became involved with the Bank of Cyprus. Then, beginning in 2002, Deutsche Bank strengthened its U.S. presence when it purchased Scudder Investments. Meanwhile, in Europe, Deutsche Bank increased its private-banking business by acquiring Rued Blass & Cie (2002) and the Russian investment bank United Financial Group (2005) founded by the United States banker Charles Ryan and the Russian official Boris Fyodorov which followed Anshu Jain's aggressive expansion to gain strong relationships with state partners in Russia. Jain persuaded Ryan to remain with Deutsche Bank at its new Russian offices and later, in April 2007, sent the president and chairman of the management board of VTB Bank Andrey Kostin's son Andrey to Deutsche Bank's Moscow office. Later, in 2008, to establish VTB Capital, numerous bankers from Deutsche Bank's Moscow office were hired by VTB Capital. In Germany, further acquisitions of Norisbank, Berliner Bank and Deutsche Postbank strengthened Deutsche Bank's retail offering in its home market. This series of acquisitions was closely aligned with the bank's strategy of bolt-on acquisitions in preference to so-called "transformational" mergers. These formed part of an overall growth strategy that also targeted a sustainable 25% return on equity, something the bank achieved in 2005.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 1 October 2003, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank entered into a payment transaction agreement with Postbank to have Postbank process payments as the clearing center for the three banks.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Since the mid-1990s Deutsche Bank commercial real estate division offered Donald Trump financial backing, even though in the early 1990s Citibank, Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical, Bankers Trust, and 68 other entities refused to financially support him.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2008, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion and a few years later, he shifted his financial portfolio from the investment banking division to Deutsche Bank private wealth division with Rosemary Vrablic, formerly of Citigroup, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch, becoming Trump's new personal banker at Deutsche Bank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2007, the company's headquarters, the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers building, was extensively renovated for three years, certified LEED Platinum and DGNB Gold.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2010, the bank developed and owned the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, after the casino's original developer defaulted on its borrowings. Deutsche Bank ran it at a loss until its sale in May 2014. The bank's exposure at the time of sale was more than $4 billion, and sold the property to Blackstone Group for $1.73 billion.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank was one of the major drivers of the expansion of the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market during the housing credit bubble from 2004 to 2008, creating about $32 billion worth. The 2011 US Senate Permanent Select Committee on Investigations report on "Wall Street and the Financial Crisis" analyzed Deutsche Bank as a case study of investment banking involvement in the mortgage bubble, CDO market, credit crunch, and recession. It concluded that even as the market was collapsing in 2007, and its top global CDO trader was deriding the CDO market and betting against some of the mortgage bonds in its CDOs, Deutsche bank continued to churn out bad CDO products to investors.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The report focused on one CDO, Gemstone VII, made largely of mortgages from Long Beach, Fremont, and New Century, all notorious subprime lenders. Deutsche Bank put risky assets into the CDO, like ACE 2006-HE1 M10, which its own traders thought was a bad bond. It also put in some mortgage bonds that its own mortgage department had created but could not sell, from the DBALT 2006 series. The CDO was then aggressively marketed as a good product, with most of it being described as having A level ratings. By 2009 the entire CDO was almost worthless and the investors (including Deutsche Bank itself) had lost most of their money.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Greg Lippmann, head of global CDO trading, was betting against the CDO market, with approval of management, even as Deutsche was continuing to churn out product. He was a major character in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short", which detailed his efforts to find 'shorts' to buy Credit Default Swaps (CDS) for the construction of Synthetic CDOs. He was one of the first traders to foresee the bubble in the CDO market as well as the tremendous potential that CDS offered in this. As portrayed in "The Big Short", Lipmann in the middle of the CDO and MBS frenzy was orchestrating presentations to investors, demonstrating his bearish view of the market, offering them the idea to start buying CDS, especially to AIG in order to profit from the forthcoming collapse. As regards the Gemstone VII deal, even as Deutsche was creating and selling it to investors, Lippman emailed colleagues that it 'blew', and he called parts of it 'crap' and 'pigs' and advised some of his clients to bet against the mortgage securities it was made of. Lippman called the CDO market a 'ponzi scheme', but also tried to conceal some of his views from certain other parties because the bank was trying to sell the products he was calling 'crap'. Lippman's group made money off of these bets, even as Deutsche overall lost money on the CDO market.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche was also involved with Magnetar Capital in creating its first Orion CDO. Deutsche had its own group of bad CDOs called START. It worked with Elliot Advisors on one of them; Elliot bet against the CDO even as Deutsche sold parts of the CDO to investors as good investments. Deutsche also worked with John Paulson, of the Goldman Sachs Abacus CDO controversy, to create some START CDOs. Deutsche lost money on START, as it did on Gemstone.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 3 January 2014, it was reported that Deutsche Bank would settle a lawsuit brought by US shareholders, who had accused the bank of bundling and selling bad real estate loans before the 2008 downturn. This settlement came subsequent and in addition to Deutsche's $1.93 billion settlement with the US Housing Finance Agency over similar litigation related to the sale of mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Former employees including Eric Ben-Artzi and Matthew Simpson have claimed that, during the crisis, Deutsche failed to recognize up to $12 billion of paper losses on its $130 billion portfolio of leveraged super senior trades, although the bank rejects the claims. A company document of May 2009 described the trades as "the largest risk in the trading book", and the whistleblowers allege that had the bank accounted properly for its positions its capital would have fallen to the extent that it might have needed a government bailout. One of them claims that "If Lehman Brothers didn't have to mark its books for six months it might still be in business, and if Deutsche had marked its books it might have been in the same position as Lehman."


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche had become the biggest operator in this market, which were a form of credit derivative designed to behave like the most senior tranche of a CDO. Deutsche bought insurance against default by blue-chip companies from investors, mostly Canadian pension funds, who received a stream of insurance premiums as income in return for posting a small amount of collateral. The bank then sold protection to US investors via the CDX credit index, the spread between the two was tiny but was worth $270m over the 7 years of the trade. It was considered very unlikely that many blue chips would have problems at the same time, so Deutsche required collateral of just 10% of the contract value.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The risk of Deutsche taking large losses if the collateral was wiped out in a crisis was called the gap option. Ben-Artzi claims that after modeling came up with "economically unfeasible" results, Deutsche accounted for the gap option first with a simple 15% "haircut" on the trades (described as inadequate by another employee in 2006) and then in 2008 by a $1–2bn reserve for the credit correlation desk designed to cover all risks, not just the gap option. In October 2008, it stopped modeling the gap option and just bought S&P put options to guard against further market disruption, but one of the whistleblowers has described this as an inappropriate hedge. A model from Ben-Artzi's previous job at Goldman Sachs suggested that the gap option was worth about 8% of the value of the trades, worth $10.4bn. Simpson claims that traders were not simply understating the gap option but actively mismarking the value of their trades.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2008, Deutsche Bank reported its first annual loss in five decades, despite receiving billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG, including US$11.8 billion from funds provided by US taxpayers to bail out AIG.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Based on a preliminary estimation from the European Banking Authority (EBA), in late 2011, Deutsche Bank AG needed to raise capital of about €3.2 billion as part of a required 9% core Tier 1 ratio after sovereign debt write-down starting in mid-2012.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: As of 2012, Deutsche Bank had negligible exposure to Greece, but Spain and Italy accounted for a tenth of its European private and corporate banking business with credit risks of about €18 billion in Italy and €12 billion in Spain.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2017, Deutsche Bank needed to get its common equity tier-1 capital ratio up to 12.5% in 2018 to be marginally above the 12.25% required by regulators.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2014, Deutsche Bank reported a €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) pre-tax loss for the fourth quarter of 2013. This came after analysts had predicted a profit of nearly €600 million, according to FactSet estimates. Revenues slipped by 16% versus the prior year.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank's Capital Ratio Tier-1 (CET1) was reported in 2015 to be only 11.4%, lower than the 12% median CET1 ratio of Europe's 24 biggest publicly traded banks, so there would be no dividend for 2015 and 2016. Furthermore, 15,000 jobs were to be cut.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In June 2015, the then co-CEOs, Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, both offered their resignations to the bank's supervisory board, which were accepted. Jain's resignation took effect in June 2015, but he provided consultancy to the bank until January 2016. Fitschen continued as joint CEO until May 2016. The appointment of John Cryan as joint CEO was announced, effective July 2016; he became sole CEO at the end of Fitschen's term.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2016, Deutsche Bank pre-announced a 2015 loss before income taxes of approximately €6.1 billion and a net loss of approximately €6.7 billion. Following this announcement, a bank analyst at Citi declared: "We believe a capital increase now looks inevitable and see an equity shortfall of up to €7 billion, on the basis that Deutsche may be forced to book another €3 billion to €4 billion of litigation charges in 2016."


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In November 2018, the bank's Frankfurt offices were raided by police in connection with investigations around the Panama papers and money laundering. Deutsche Bank released a statement confirming it would "cooperate closely with prosecutors".


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In February 2019, HNA Group announced cutting stake in Deutsche Bank to 6.3 percent. It was further reduced to 0.19 percent as at March 2019.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: During the Annual General Meeting in May 2019, CEO Christian Sewing said he was expecting a "deluge of criticism" about the bank's performance and announced that he was ready to make "tough cutbacks" after the failure of merger negotiations with Commerzbank AG and weak profitability. According to "The New York Times", "its finances and strategy [are] in disarray and 95 percent of its market value [has been] erased". News headlines in late June 2019 claimed that the bank would cut 20,000 jobs, over 20% of its staff, in a restructuring plan. On 8 July 2019, the bank began to cut 18,000 jobs, including entire teams of equity traders in Europe, the US, and Asia. On the previous day, Sewing had laid blame on unnamed predecessors who created a "culture of poor capital allocation" and chasing revenue for the sake of revenue, according to a "Financial Times" report, and promised that going forward, the bank "will only operate where we are competitive".


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2020, Deutsche Bank had decided to cut the bonus pool at its investment branch by 30% following restructuring efforts.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In February 2021, it was reported that Deutsche Bank made a profit of €113 million ($135.6 million) for 2020, the first annual net profit it had posted since 2014.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In March 2021, Deutsche Bank sold about $4 billion of holdings seized in the implosion of Archegos Capital Management in a private deal. The move helped Deutsche Bank emerge unscathed after Archegos defaulted on margin loans used to build up highly leveraged bets on stocks.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: When Deutsche Bank was first organized in 1870 there was no CEO. Instead the board was represented by a speaker of the board. Beginning in February 2012, the bank has been led by two co-CEOs; in July 2015 it announced it would be led by one CEO beginning in 2016. The management bodies are the annual general meeting, supervisory board and management board.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 1972, the bank created the world-known blue logo "Slash in a Square" – designed by Anton Stankowski and intended to represent growth within a risk-controlled framework.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank is one of the leading listed companies in German post-war history. Its shares are traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and, since 2001, also on the New York Stock Exchange and are included in various indices, including the DAX and the Euro Stoxx 50. As the share had lost value since mid-2015 and market capitalization had shrunk to around €18 billion, it temporarily withdrew from the Euro Stoxx 50 on 8 August 2016. With a 0.73% stake, it is currently the company with the lowest index weighting.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2001, Deutsche Bank merged its mortgage banking business with that of Dresdner Bank and Commerzbank to form Eurohypo AG. In 2005, Deutsche Bank sold its stake in the joint company to Commerzbank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The bank's business model rests on three pillars – the Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), the Private & Commercial Bank and Asset Management (DWS).


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) is Deutsche Bank's capital markets business. The CIB comprises the below six units.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank holds a majority stake in the listed asset manager DWS Group (formerly Deutsche Asset Management), which was separated from the bank in March 2018.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank in general as well as specific employees have frequently figured in controversies and allegations of deceitful behavior or illegal transactions. As of 2016, the bank was involved in some 7,800 legal disputes and calculated €5.4 billion as litigation reserves, with a further €2.2 billion held against other contingent liabilities. According to the "New Yorker", Deutsche Bank has long had an "abject" reputation. Between 2008 and 2016, Deutsche Bank paid around nine billion dollars in fines and settlements related to wrongdoings across different issue areas. The FinCEN file leaks documented around $1.3 trillion of suspicious transactions through Deutsche Bank between 1999 and 2017. More than half of all suspicious transactions involving major banks in the FinCEN files leaks involved Deutsche Bank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2017, Deutsche Bank agreed to a $7.2 billion settlement with the United States Department of Justice over its sale and pooling of toxic mortgage securities in the years leading up to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008. As part of the agreement, Deutsche Bank was required to pay a civil monetary penalty of $3.1 billion and provide $4.1 billion in consumer relief, such as loan forgiveness. At the time of the agreement, Deutsche Bank was still facing investigations into the alleged manipulation of foreign exchange rates, suspicious equities trades in Russia, as well as alleged violations of United States sanctions against Iran and other countries. Since 2012, Deutsche Bank had paid more than €12 billion for litigation, including a deal with U.S. mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2009, the bank admitted it engaged in covert espionage on its critics from 2001 to 2007 directed by its corporate security department, although it characterized the incidents as "isolated". According to "The Wall Street Journal", Deutsche Bank had prepared a list of names of people who it wanted investigated for criticism of the bank, including Michael Bohndorf (an activist investor in the bank), Leo Kirch (a former media executive in litigation with the bank), and the Munich law firm of Bub Gauweiler & Partner, which represented Kirch. According to the "Wall Street Journal", the bank's legal department was involved in the scheme along with its corporate security department. The bank hired Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton to investigate the incidents on its behalf. The Cleary firm submitted its report, which however was not made public. According to "The Wall Street Journal", the Cleary firm uncovered a plan by which Deutsche Bank was to infiltrate the Bub Gauweiler firm by having a bank mole hired as an intern at the Bub Gauweiler firm. The plan was allegedly cancelled after the intern was hired but before she started work. Peter Gauweiler, a principal at the targeted law firm, was quoted as saying "I expect the appropriate authorities including state prosecutors and the bank's oversight agencies will conduct a full investigation."


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank´s law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Frankfurt published a report in July 2009 saying, it found no systemic misbehaviour and there was no indication that present members of the Management Board had been involved in any activity that raises legal issues or has had any knowledge of such activities. This was confirmed by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Frankfurt in October 2009. BaFin found deficiencies in operations within Deutsche Bank's security unit in Germany but no systemic misconduct. The bank said it took steps to strengthen controls for the mandating of external service providers by its Corporate Security Department.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 26 January 2014, William S. Broeksmit, a risk specialist at Deutsche Bank who was very close to Anshu Jain and hired by Edson Mitchell to spearhead Deutsche Bank's foray into international investments and money management in the 1990s, released numerous Deutsche Bank documents from the New York branch of the Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas (DBTCA), which Broeksmit's adopted son Val Broeksmit, who is a close friend of Moby, later gave, along with numerous emails, to both Welt am Sonntag and ZDF, which revealed numerous irregularities including both a $10 billion money laundering scheme spearheaded by the Russia branch of Deutsche Bank at Moscow, which the New York State Department of Financial Services fined Deutsche Bank $425 million, and derivatives improprieties.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 23 April 2015, Deutsche Bank agreed to a combined US$2.5 billion in fines – a US$2.175 billion fine by American regulators, and a €227 million penalty by British authorities – for its involvement in the Libor scandal uncovered in June 2012. It was one of several banks colluding to fix interest rates used to price hundreds of trillions of dollars of loans and contracts worldwide, including mortgages and student loans. Deutsche Bank also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, acknowledging that at least 29 employees had engaged in illegal activity. It was required to dismiss all employees who were involved with the fraudulent transactions. However, no individuals were charged with criminal wrongdoing. In a Libor first, Deutsche Bank will be required to install an independent monitor. Commenting on the fine, Britain's Financial Conduct Authority director Georgina Philippou said "This case stands out for the seriousness and duration of the breaches ... One division at Deutsche Bank had a culture of generating profits without proper regard to the integrity of the market. This wasn't limited to a few individuals but, on certain desks, it appeared deeply ingrained." The fine represented a record for interest rate related cases, eclipsing a $1.5 billion Libor related fine to UBS, and the then-record $450 million fine assessed to Barclays earlier in the case. The size of the fine reflected the breadth of wrongdoing at Deutsche Bank, the bank's poor oversight of traders, and its failure to take action when it uncovered signs of abuse internally.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 5 November 2015, Deutsche Bank was ordered to pay US$258 million (€237.2 million) in penalties imposed by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and the United States Federal Reserve Bank after the bank was caught doing business with Burma, Libya, Sudan, Iran, and Syria, which were under US sanctions at the time. According to the US federal authorities, Deutsche Bank handled 27,200 US dollar clearing transactions valued at more than US$10.86 billion (€9.98 billion) to help evade US sanctions between early 1999 until 2006 which were done on behalf of Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, Burmese, and Sudanese financial institutions and other entities subject to US sanctions, including entities on the Specially Designated Nationals by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In response to the penalties, the bank will pay US$200 million (€184 million) to the NYDFS while the rest (US$58 million; €53.3 million) will go to the Federal Reserve. In addition to the payment, the bank will install an independent monitor, fire six employees who were involved in the incident, and ban three other employees from any work involving the bank's US-based operations.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In June 2016 six former employees in Germany were accused of being involved in a major tax fraud deal with CO emission certificates, and most of them were subsequently convicted. It was estimated that the sum of money in the tax evasion scandal might have been as high as €850 million. Deutsche Bank itself was not convicted due to an absence of corporate liability laws in Germany.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Environmentalists criticize Deutsche Bank for co-financing the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, which is planned to run close to an Indian reservation and is seen as a threat to their livelihood by its inhabitants.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank has issued a statement addressing the criticism it received from various environmental groups.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2017, the bank was fined $425 million by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) and £163 million by the UK Financial Conduct Authority regarding accusations of laundering $10 billion out of Russia.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The Global Laundromat scandal revealed Deutsche Bank's involvement in a vast money-laundering operation over the period 2010–2014. The operation may have involved as much as $80 billion. In 2019, "The Guardian" reported that a confidential internal report at Deutsche Bank showed that the bank could face fines, legal action, and even possible prosecution of senior management over the bank's role in the money laundering.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Deutsche Bank refused to close down its Russia business. At the same time, other banks and major businesses were exiting Russia.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank is widely recognized as being the largest creditor to real-estate-mogul-turned-politician Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, lending him and his company more than $2 billion over twenty years ending 2020. The bank held more than $360 million in outstanding loans to him prior to his 2016 election. Although his 2019 final report never mentioned Deutsche Bank, as of December 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated Deutsche Bank's role in Trump and Russian parties allegedly cooperating to elect him. , Deutsche Bank's relationship with Trump was also under investigation by two U.S. congressional committees and by the New York attorney general.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In April 2019, House Democrats subpoenaed the Bank for Trump's personal and financial records. On 29 April 2019, President Donald Trump, his business, and his children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One bank to block them from turning over financial records to congressional committees. On 22 May 2019, judge Edgardo Ramos of the federal District Court in Manhattan rejected the Trump suit against Deutsche Bank, ruling the bank must comply with congressional subpoenas. Six days later, Ramos granted Trump's attorneys their request for a stay so they could pursue an expedited appeal through the courts. In October 2019, a federal appeals court said the bank asserted it did not have Trump's tax returns. In December 2019, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Deutsche Bank must release Trump's financial records, with some exceptions, to congressional committees; Trump was given seven days to seek another stay pending a possible appeal to the Supreme Court.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In May 2019, "The New York Times" reported that anti-money laundering specialists in the bank detected what appeared to be suspicious transactions involving entities controlled by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, for which they recommended filing suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department, but bank executives rejected the recommendations. One specialist noted money moving from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals and flagged it in part because of the bank's previous involvement in a Russian money-laundering scheme.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 19 November 2019, Thomas Bowers, a former Deutsche Bank executive and head of the American wealth management division, was reported to have committed suicide in his Malibu home. Bowers had been in charge of overseeing and personally signing over $360 million in high-risk loans for Trump's National Doral Miami resort. The loans had been subject to a criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation of the president's 2016 campaign involvement in Russian election meddling. Documents on those loans have also been subpoenaed from Deutsche Bank by the House Democrats together with the financial documents of the president. A relationship between Bowers's responsibilities and apparent suicide has not been established; the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner – Coroner closed the case, giving no indication to wrongdoing by third parties.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In early 2021, Deutsche Bank elected to discontinue its relationship with Donald Trump following his supporters' United States Capitol Riot.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: Deutsche Bank lent money and traded currencies for the well-known sex offender Jeffrey Epstein up to May 2019, long after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea in Florida to soliciting prostitution from underage girls, according to news reports. Epstein and his businesses had dozens of accounts through the private-banking division. From 2013 to 2018, "Epstein, his related entities and his associates" had opened over forty accounts with Deutsche Bank.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: According to "The New York Times", Deutsche Bank managers overruled compliance officers who raised concerns about Epstein's reputation"."


title: Deutsche Bank

text: The bank found suspicious transactions in which Epstein moved money out of the United States, "The Times" reported.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 7 July 2020, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) imposed a $150 million penalty on Deutsche Bank, in connection with Epstein. The bank had "ignored red flags on Epstein".


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 24 November, two unnamed women that accused Epstein of sexual abuse and sex trafficking also sued Deutsche Bank for its role in enabling Epstein to run his sex-trafficking operations by ignoring red flags regarding his account and the withdrawal of suspiciously high sums of money.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 19 November 2018, a whistleblower of the Danske Bank money laundering scandal stated that a large European bank was involved in helping Danske process $150 billion in suspect funds. Although the whistleblower, Howard Wilkinson, did not name Deutsche Bank directly, another inside source claimed the institute in question was Deutsche Bank's U.S. unit.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In 2020 it became known that the U.S. arm of Deutsche Bank processed more than $150 billion of the $230 billion dirty money through New York, for which it was fined 150 million $. After a raid in 2019, Frankfurt-based prosecutors imposed a fine of $15.8 million in 2020 for DB´s failure on more than 600 occasions to promptly report suspicious transactions.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: On 20 July 2018, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay nearly $75 million to settle charges of improper handling of "pre-released" American depositary receipt (ADRs) under investigation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Deutsche Bank didn't admit or deny the investigation findings but agreed to pay disgorgement of more than $44.4 million in ill-gotten gains plus $6.6 million in prejudgment interest and a penalty of $22.2 million.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In July 2019, U.S. prosecutors investigated Deutsche Bank's role in a multibillion-dollar fraud scandal involving the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. Deutsche Bank helped raise $1.2 billion for the 1MDB in 2014. As of May 2021 Malaysia sued Deutsche Bank to recover billions in alleged losses from a corruption scandal at the fund.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In January 2021, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a U.S. fine of more than $130 million for a scheme to conceal bribes to foreign officials in countries such as Saudi Arabia and China, and the city of Abu Dhabi, between 2008 and 2017 and a commodities case where it spoofed precious metals futures.


title: Deutsche Bank

text: In March 2022, Ben Darsney, Ravi Raghunathan, Brandon Sun, and Daniel Gaona were exposed for trying to expense strip club nights out as legitimate business visits. Brandon Sun attempted to cover up the incident, but the bankers were let go for violating the Company Code of Conduct.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: The series has been both critically and commercially successful. "Xenoblade Chronicles" was well-received for its world design, music, and stories. The series has been represented in other gaming franchises, including the "Super Smash Bros." and "Project X Zone" series.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: The stories and characters vary with each game in the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series, however series creator Tetsuya Takahashi believes that the series is defined by the players' desire to remain in the game world. The core concept of these games is to keep players immersed in these worlds, allowing them to freely explore.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: The gameplay within the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series uses a real-time action-based battle system, where the player manually moves a character in real-time, and party members will "auto-attack" when enemies enter their attack radius. Manually input attacks, called "Arts", may also be performed, but in a limited fashion. Battle Arts are only available after a "cool down" period that occurs after every use, while character specific "Talent Arts" only become available after enough auto-attacks are executed. Both party members and enemies have a finite number of health points, and attacks deplete this value. Combat is won when all enemies lose their HP, but the game is lost if the player's character loses all their HP and has no means of being revived. Health may be restored by the player by using healing Arts in battle, or the player may let characters' HP regenerate automatically outside of battle. Winning battles earns the player experience points, which allows the characters to grow stronger by leveling up and learning new Arts. Arts for each character must be set by the player on their respective set up, called a "Battle Palette", outside of battles. Additionally, exploring large environments is a defining aspect of gameplay.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: While the "Xenoblade" games do not share any setting directly, its universes are directly linked except for "Xenoblade Chronicles X" which is regarded as a spiritual successor. However, it is represented as a single episode in the overall universe. Two colossal titans known as the Bionis and the Mechonis serve as the setting for "Xenoblade Chronicles"; with the "Future Connected" epilogue taking place in a smaller area, the Bionis's shoulder. "Xenoblade Chronicles X" takes place on an alien planet known as Mira. "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" and its prequel "Torna – The Golden Country" take place in the world of Alrest, which contains several titans that house many different nations. "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" takes place in the world of Aionios, a large continent made up of areas from "Xenoblade Chronicles" and "Xenoblade Chronicles 2".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: In the series's fictional chronology, "Xenoblade Chronicles" is the first game to take place. Its epilogue, "Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected" is set one year after the events of the main game. "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" takes place in a parallel universe, occurring simultaneously to the events of "Xenoblade Chronicles". Its prequel, "Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country" is set 500 years before the events of the game. "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" takes place an unspecified amount of time after the previous games, and depicts the future of the worlds of "Xenoblade Chronicles" and "Xenoblade Chronicles 2".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: Each game in the series introduces its own set of characters. There are a number of recurring character archetypes. Tracing back to "Xenogears", the series has always included a character with the name beginning with "Van-". Vangarre appears in "Xenoblade Chronicles", Jack Vandham in "Xenoblade Chronicles X", Vandham in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" and Guernica Vandham in "Xenoblade Chronicles 3". There has been numerous callbacks to KOS-MOS from "Xenosaga". She appears as a rare Blade in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2". Her general appearance has been reflected in several characters' designs, including Elma's true form in "Xenoblade Chronicles X" and Poppi QTπ in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2". Additionally, Nia's awakening scene in "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" bears a strong resemblance to KOS-MOS' introduction scene in "Xenosaga Episode I".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: A race of small furry creatures known as the Nopon have appeared in every title in the series. In contrast to their appearances, the Nopon race, in general, tend to be greedy and selfish by nature. In every game, the names of Nopon non-player characters have been carried over to the next installment as the main Nopon character: Satata (Tatsu in Japan) from "Xenoblade Chronicles" appears in "Xenoblade Chronicles X". The "Xenoblade Chronicles X" incarnation of Tatsu has a major rival known as Tora, who also appears in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" as a playable Nopon character.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: There are four main games under the "Xenoblade Chronicles" series. Each game depicts a single episode within the flow of a larger time and space. Despite the loose connections between each entry, they each feature their own cast of characters, setting, and story.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: "Xenoblade Chronicles 3"'s third and final wave of the downloadable content will include a major story expansion to be released by the end of 2023. Monolith Soft has teased that the volume could be as large as "".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: In regards to the future of the franchise, series director and producer Genki Yokota ensured that the series will go on and that they would like to keep it going for as long as possible. "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" is the conclusion to the story arc of "Xenoblade Chronicles" and "Xenoblade Chronicles 2", however Tetsuya Takahashi indicated that it is not the end of the series. He suggested that those who play the game and the stories in the expansion pass can imagine what lies ahead for the series. Series director Koh Kojima expressed an interest in making "Xenoblade Chronicles X2".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: The staff at Monolith Soft was left in a state of low morale after the commercial failure of the Xenosaga series which ultimately led to its premature end. In July 2006, Tetsuya Takahashi was struck by the idea of people living on top of enormous titans, so he wrote the concept down and turned it into a 3D model. The project was initially called "Monado: Beginning of the World", but was changed to "Xenoblade" in Japan to honor Tetsuya Takahashi's previous work on the "Xeno" series and for his hard work on the game. Nintendo of Europe announced that they were publishing the game, adding "Chronicles" to "Xenoblade". Due to no plans to release the title in North America, the fans launched a fan-campaign known as Operation Rainfall to convince Nintendo to bring "Xenoblade Chronicles" to North America along with "The Last Story" and "Pandora's Tower". After months of silence, Nintendo of America confirmed that the title was headed for North America in April 2012.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: Monolith Soft began development of "Xenoblade Chronicles", an action role-playing game for the Nintendo Wii that was released in Japan on June 10, 2010. The game was later localized by Nintendo of Europe and was released in Europe and Australia on August 19, 2011, and September 1, 2011, respectively. It was then brought over to North America as a GameStop exclusive on April 6, 2012. "Xenoblade Chronicles 3D", a port handled by Monster Games, was released worldwide in April 2015 for the New Nintendo 3DS.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: The "Xenoblade Chronicles" series has been represented in different mediums. Shulk appears as a playable fighter in "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS" and "Wii U" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". Pyra and Mythra also appear as a dual character as downloadable content for "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate." In addition to Shulk, Dunban from the original "Xenoblade Chronicles" as well as Rex and Nia from "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" appear as Mii Fighter costumes in "Ultimate". A Shulk amiibo figure was released in February 2015, which functions as an NPC opponent in "Super Smash Bros." and unlocks costumes based on Shulk in "Yoshi's Woolly World" and "Super Mario Maker". Fiora from the original "Xenoblade Chronicles" appears as a playable character in "Project X Zone 2". "" features the outfit worn by Rex in "Xenoblade Chronicles 2".


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: Good Smile Company has released several figures based on characters from the series, including Pyra, Mythra, KOS-MOS, Melia, and Nia.


title: Xenoblade Chronicles

text: "Xenoblade Chronicles" sold nearly 200,000 units in Japan by the end of 2013. In a later interview, the game sold better in the west than it did in Japan. As of December 2015, "Xenoblade Chronicles X" sold roughly 377,000 units between Japan, France, and the United States. "Xenoblade Chronicles 2" sold 1.42 million copies as of June 2018, which became the best-selling title ever developed by Monolith Soft. Its sales performance exceeded the company's expectations in western territories. "Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country" was also noted for surpassing their sales expectations in Japan as well.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States."


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Its third paragraph reads:


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation. After quoting from the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, it stated:


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do ... order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion, against the United States, the following, towit:


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Lincoln then listed the ten states still in rebellion, excluding parts of states under Union control, and continued:


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free... [S]uch persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States... And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God...


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The proclamation provided that the executive branch, including the Army and Navy, "will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons". Even though it excluded areas not in rebellion, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. Around 25,000 to 75,000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion, but, as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million enslaved people in those regions by the end of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers, who saw it as the beginning of a race war. It energized abolitionists, and undermined those Europeans who wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy. The Proclamation lifted the spirits of African Americans both free and enslaved; it led many to escape from their masters and flee toward Union lines to obtain their freedom and to join the Union Army. The Emancipation Proclamation became a historic document because it "would redefine the Civil War, turning it from a struggle to preserve the Union to one focused on ending slavery, and set a decisive course for how the nation would be reshaped after that historic conflict."


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require them to enact laws abolishing slavery (which occurred during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana); Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and pushed for passage of the 13th Amendment. The Senate passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on April 8, 1864; the House of Representatives did so on January 31, 1865; and the required three-fourths of the states ratified it on December 6, 1865. The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional, "except as a punishment for crime."


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The United States Constitution of 1787 did not use the word "slavery" but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise (in Article I, Section 2) allocated congressional representation based "on the whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons". Under the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2), "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would be freed by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9 allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808. However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment—which states that, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood to be property. Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it was made part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property by "Dred Scott v. Sandford" (1857). Slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of white supremacy. Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of the South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the American Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Lincoln understood that the federal government's power to end slavery in peacetime was limited by the Constitution, which, before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. During the American Civil War, however, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation under his authority as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution. As such, in the Emancipation Proclamation he claimed to have the authority to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion". He did not have such authority over the four border slave-holding states that were not in rebellion — Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware — so those states were not named in the Proclamation. The fifth border jurisdiction, West Virginia, where slavery remained legal but was in the process of being abolished, was, in January 1863, still part of the legally recognized, "reorganized" state of Virginia, based in Alexandria, which was in the Union (as opposed to the Confederate state of Virginia, based in Richmond).


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Proclamation did not free all slaves in the U.S., contrary to a common misconception; the Proclamation applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but it did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slaveholding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland or Delaware) that had not seceded. Those slaves were freed by later separate state and federal actions.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, under a recognized Union government, so it was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties then in the process of forming the new state of West Virginia, and seven additional counties and two cities in the Union-controlled Tidewater region of Virginia. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana, which were mostly under federal control at the time of the Proclamation. These exemptions left unemancipated an additional 300,000 slaves.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Emancipation Proclamation has been ridiculed, notably in an influential passage by Richard Hofstadter, who wrote that it "had all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading" and "declared free all slaves ... precisely where its effect could not reach." The Proclamation, however, cleared up the issue of contraband slaves. It automatically clarified the status of over 100,000 now-former slaves. Some 20,000 to 50,000 slaves were freed the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception). In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was controversial even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 3.9 million, according to the 1860 Census) were freed by July 1865.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Although the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Of the states that were exempted from the Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia prohibited slavery before the war ended. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for the Reconstruction of the captured Confederate State of Louisiana. Only 10 percent of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath. The state was also required to accept the Proclamation and abolish slavery in its new constitution. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan abolishing slavery had been enacted not only in Louisiana, but also in Arkansas and Tennessee. In Kentucky, Union Army commanders relied on the Proclamation's offer of freedom to slaves who enrolled in the Army and provided freedom for an enrollee's entire family; for this and other reasons the number of slaves in the state fell by more than 70 percent during the war. However, in Delaware and Kentucky, slavery continued to be legal until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: During the American Revolution, British commanders issued the Dunmore Proclamation (1775) and the Phillipsburg Proclamation (1779). Similar to the Emancipation Proclamation, the British proclamations only freed slaves owned by rebels.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During the war, in May 1861, Union general Benjamin Butler declared that slaves who escaped to Union lines were contraband of war, and accordingly he refused to return them. On May 30, after a cabinet meeting called by President Lincoln, "Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, telegraphed Butler to inform him that his contraband policy 'is approved.'" This decision was controversial because it could have been taken to imply recognition of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of the Union Address, but then typically given in writing and not referred to as such). In it he praised the free labor system, as respecting human rights over property rights; he endorsed legislation to address the status of contraband slaves and slaves in loyal states, possibly through buying their freedom with federal taxes, and also the funding of strictly voluntary colonization efforts. In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican leader in the House, called for total war against the rebellion to include emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation, by forcing the loss of enslaved labor, would ruin the rebel economy. On March 13, 1862, Congress approved an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves, which prohibited "All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States" from returning fugitive slaves to their owners. Pursuant to a law signed by Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, and owners were compensated.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all current and future United States territories (though not in the states), and President Lincoln quickly signed the legislation. This act effectively repudiated the 1857 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the "Dred Scott" case that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in U.S. territories. It also rejected the notion of popular sovereignty that had been advanced by Stephen A. Douglas as a solution to the slavery controversy, while completing the effort first legislatively proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 to confine slavery within the borders of existing states.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On August 6, 1861, the First Confiscation Act freed the slaves who were employed "against the Government and lawful authority of the United States." On July 17, 1862, the Second Confiscation Act freed the slaves "within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States." The Second Confiscation Act, unlike the First Confiscation Act, explicitly provided that all slaves covered by it would be permanently freed, stating in section 10 that "all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." However, Lincoln's position continued to be that, although Congress lacked the power to free the slaves in rebel-held states, he, as commander in chief, could do so if he deemed it a proper military measure. By this time, in the summer of 1862, Lincoln had drafted the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which, when he issued it on September 22, 1862, would declare that, on January 1, 1863, he would free the slaves in states still in rebellion.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves. In the summer of 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential "New-York Tribune" wrote a famous editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" demanding a more aggressive attack on the Confederacy and faster emancipation of the slaves: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one ... intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel ... that the rebellion, if crushed tomorrow, would be renewed if slavery were left in full vigor and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union." Lincoln responded in his from August 22, 1862, in terms of the limits imposed by his duty as president to save the Union:


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote in this context about Lincoln's letter: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this after he had already drafted a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter, was in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as a liberator." Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union." However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to the cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both, at the same time. In his 2014 book, "Lincoln's Gamble", journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was, in fact, crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free the slaves was as a tactic of war—not as the mission itself. But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates, for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of the "Dred Scott" decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Conflicting advice, to free all slaves, or not free them at all, was presented to Lincoln in public and private. Thomas Nast, a cartoon artist during the Civil War and the late 1800s considered "Father of the American Cartoon", composed many works, including a two-sided spread that showed the transition from slavery into civilization after President Lincoln signed the Proclamation. Nast believed in equal opportunity and equality for all people, including enslaved Africans or free blacks. A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862, demanded immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation headed by William W. Patton met the president at the White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free the slaves. Even used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole was against it. There would be strong opposition among Copperhead Democrats and an uncertain reaction from loyal border states. Delaware and Maryland already had a high percentage of free blacks: 91.2% and 49.7%, respectively, in 1860.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Lincoln first discussed the proclamation with his cabinet in July 1862. He drafted his "preliminary proclamation" and read it to Secretary of State William Seward, and Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, on July 13. Seward and Welles were at first speechless, then Seward referred to possible anarchy throughout the South and resulting foreign intervention; Welles apparently said nothing. On July 22, Lincoln presented it to his entire cabinet as something he had determined to do and he asked their opinion on wording. Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue the proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat".


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In the battle, though the Union suffered heavier losses than the Confederates and General McClellan allowed the escape of Robert E. Lee's retreating troops, Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion of Maryland, eliminating more than a quarter of Lee's army in the process.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam, and while residing at the Soldier's Home, Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. According to Civil War historian James M. McPherson, Lincoln told cabinet members, "I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves." Lincoln had first shown an early draft of the proclamation to Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. The final proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. Although implicitly granted authority by Congress, Lincoln used his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to issue the proclamation "as a necessary war measure." Therefore, it was not the equivalent of a statute enacted by Congress or a constitutional amendment, because Lincoln or a subsequent president could revoke it. Some days after issuing the final Proclamation, Lincoln wrote to Major General John McClernand: "After the commencement of hostilities I struggled nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the "institution"; and when finally I conditionally determined to touch it, I gave a hundred days fair notice of my purpose, to all the States and people, within which time they could have turned it wholly aside, by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States. They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremptory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a military necessity. And being made, it must stand."


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed only a small percentage of the slaves, namely those who were behind Union lines in areas not exempted. Most slaves were still behind Confederate lines or in exempted Union-occupied areas. Secretary of State William H. Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Had any slave state ended its secession attempt before January 1, 1863, it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily. The Proclamation freed the slaves only in areas of the South that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. But as the Union army advanced into the South, slaves fled to behind its lines, and "[s]hortly after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln administration lifted the ban on enticing slaves into Union lines." These events contributed to the destruction of slavery.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for the enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military. During the war nearly 200,000 black men, most of them ex-slaves, joined the Union Army. Their contributions were significant in winning the war. The Confederacy did not allow slaves in their army as soldiers until the last month before its defeat.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form West Virginia were specifically exempted from the Proclamation (Jefferson County being the only exception), a condition of the state's admittance to the Union was that its constitution provide for the gradual abolition of slavery (an immediate emancipation of all slaves was also adopted there in early 1865). Slaves in the border states of Maryland and Missouri were also emancipated by separate state action before the Civil War ended. In Maryland, a new state constitution abolishing slavery in the state went into effect on November 1, 1864. The Union-occupied counties of eastern Virginia and parishes of Louisiana, which had been exempted from the Proclamation, both adopted state constitutions that abolished slavery in April 1864. In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: The Proclamation was issued in a preliminary version and a final version. The former, issued on September 22, 1862, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the latter, which took effect 100 days later on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in the final Emancipation Proclamation (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina). Not included were the Union slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky. Also not named was the state of Tennessee, in which a Union-controlled military government had already been set up, based in the capital, Nashville. Specific exemptions were stated for areas also under Union control on January 1, 1863, namely 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia, seven other named counties of Virginia including Berkeley and Hampshire counties, which were soon added to West Virginia, New Orleans and 13 named parishes nearby.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Union-occupied areas of the Confederate states where the proclamation was put into immediate effect by local commanders included Winchester, Virginia, Corinth, Mississippi, the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, Key West, Florida, and Port Royal, South Carolina.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward the stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation. It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave; historian Lerone Bennett Jr. alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves. However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Port Royal, South Carolina record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation." This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina, the Mississippi Valley, northern Alabama, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas, and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley and the area around Alexandria were covered. Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: On the other hand, Robert Gould Shaw wrote to his mother on September 25, 1862, "So the 'Proclamation of Emancipation' has come at last, or rather, its forerunner... I suppose you all are very much excited about it. For my part, I can't see what "practical" good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the Proclamation will not free them where we don't go." Ten days later, he wrote her again, "Don't imagine, from what I said in my last ... that I thought Mr. Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' not right ... but still, as a "war-measure", I don't see the immediate benefit of it, ... as the slaves are "sure" of being free at any rate, with or without an Emancipation Act."


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by the Union Army as "contraband of war" under the Confiscation Acts; when the proclamation took effect, they were told at midnight that they were free to leave. The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of Reconstruction was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free.


title: Emancipation Proclamation

text: Slaves had been part of the "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of the Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines. George Washington Albright, a teenage slave in Mississippi, recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep the Proclamation from slaves but news of it came through the "grapevine". The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the "4Ls" ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout the region.