The Oesterreichische Nationalbank was established under the conditions of the stabilization loan coordinated by the
Economic and Financial Organization of the
League of Nations in 1922–23. The bank's statutes were drafted by the League's Financial Committee and enacted in Austrian legislation on . The new institution started operations on . It took over the former Austrian-territory branches and operations of the
Austro-Hungarian Bank, whose liquidation had been implemented in accordance with the
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye signed on , and whose Governing Council last met on . Following the
banking crisis of 1931, Austrian National Bank President Viktor Kienböck oversaw an orthodox economic policy paradigm in which he rigorously defended the currency in the face of growing overvaluation. This contributed to a substantial contraction in Austrian GDP. Following the
Anschluss in 1938, the Austrian National Bank's was liquidated, and its shareholders were forced to accept German government bonds in exchange for their shares. Most of its assets and liabilities, including gold reserves, were taken over by the
Reichsbank;
Karl Blessing, by then a junior Reichsbank official and future President of the
Deutsche Bundesbank, directed the restructuring. The former Austrian National Bank became the Reichsbank's Vienna branch, and the
Reichsmark became Austria's currency by German decree of . The former National Bank's gold holdings and foreign currency reserves were moved to Berlin. The Oesterreichische Nationalbank was re-established by the Central Bank Transition Act of of the
Second Austrian Republic. The
Austrian schilling came back to replace the Reichsmark on . Much of the head office building served as headquarters of the
American occupation forces in Austria from 1945 to 1951. ==Tasks and composition==