Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction
by David Enrich
View on GoodreadsDavid Enrich's 2020 investigation of Deutsche Bank's catastrophic three-decade arc — from German blue-chip to global investment-bank gambler to legal-jeopardy serial offender — with its decades-long lending relationship with Donald Trump as one connecting thread.
Core ideas
- Deutsche Bank lent to Trump when no other major bank would, repeatedly, even after Trump defaulted on the bank and sued it — the question of why has been answered partially in subsequent reporting but never fully publicly.
- The Russian-money piece (the $10B mirror-trades scheme, the suspicious wires through Estonian and Latvian branches) connects the Trump relationship to the broader Deutsche pattern; the bank was a primary node in Western-banking infrastructure for Russian capital flight.
- The William Broeksmit suicide and the broader executive-mental-health pattern at Deutsche during the legal-jeopardy years is the book's human spine — the bank's culture produced specific personal casualties beyond the financial ones.
Published2020
Pages432
ISBN9780062878823
ReadFeb 2026
