Club. I want to take a second might be going to please silentio cell phones. We will be recording audio and video so thats a great incentive to try phones, and also to ask questions with open the floor up, theres a standing mic here in the middle when we do that after the talk here following the talk and the questions there will be assigning. We have books available behind the register. After the talk if you want to get up and purchase book and come back david would be more than happy to sign the. Finally after everything is said and done if you could collapse futures pictures about them up against a surface, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Tonight i have the pleasure of hosting david unhra, plaintiff entered at New York Times. He previously was a reporter and editor at the wall street journal in new york and london. Before that he was journal of European Banking london and has won numerous journalism awards including the 2016 award for feature writing. He is the author of the spider network, how a math genius and gain of scheming bankers pulled off one of the greatest games in history which is shortlisted for the Financial Times bestselling book of you. His new book dark towers Deutsche Bank, donald trump, and an epic trail of destruction, david traces the banks darkest of its relationship with you as president as well as tragic case of william brooks. Everyone please join me in welcoming david and rick david enrich. [applause] hello. I have the pleasure of doing lots of luck event of the past two years from my previous book and ive done book events like this, which im not kidding, six people in the room, and so this is just awesome. Im going to take a picture because [laughing] my wife were not believe this. Ill take a couple pictures. So thank you all for coming. Its an honor to be here and is extremely gratifying to see a turn out like this for a book about a European Bank that no one has ever heard of. So i just wanted, i guess for nonfiction audiences, nonfiction books people generally do not read to start by want to read just the opening section of the book which is just take a couple minutes just to set the scene and then i will explain why im setting the scene and i got into writing this book in the first place. It was a little before 1 p. M. When a wiry american emerged from the tube station into a drizzle, the type of dreary january that the earned london its reputation as a decrepit place in the long winter but the man looked around. Normally even in this dark season the block was pretty and bustling with shoppers. This sunday and early 2014 it was desolate. He didnt feel well. Get woken up groggy from the previous night drug fueled jam session with his band. Then on the card underground train on its way to chelsea yet been killed or by surge of negative energy like a dark spirit had brushed past him. He lit a a cigarette and trudgd towards the entrance to the gallery, he said down and if you attempt to stay dry. He was scaled to brunch at the gallery cafe with his parents. The last time eating them was a month earlier in december 2013 people they set set off for the caribbean and then the vocation in oman. He just turned 38 while he was a talented musician with 34 albums to his name, none were charttoppers, he lived up to his father puts them in years as a Senior Executive at Deutsche Bank one of the Worlds LargestFinancial Institutions. Tall skinny scraggly his friend sometimes told he resembled a trip. He was determined on the senate not to get an earful from his mother about looking like a slot. He wore slacks, a blue blazer and a black woolen cap. At exactly 1 00 he arrived at the arch brick wall that snaked around the gallery. He was notorious in your stomach for never being on time but he was was in his upsets with punctual pairs were nowhere to be seen. Where are you guys he texted . She didnt respond. Val wanted to cross a pedestrian street bruising the rope boutiques and overpriced shops. He came across a bookstore which specialist and coffee tables about art and culture. For the past couple of years thou had been collecting rare first editions, the older and more famous the author of the better. He was so into his hobby that you can follow to work for an organization that gathered unwanted books from estate sales and distribute them to needing children. He would sit to the stacks hidden for hidden gems for his own library. The bookstore was mostly empty. I like this. Val browsed until something caught his eye. An enormous volume with a shimmering silver color priced at 650 pounds from about 1000. It was a limitededition collection of iconic photos of the beatles including the one of a pillow fight in the paris hotel room. The book was signed by the photographer photography pages or so luxuriously metallic that he could see his reflection in then. He started to daydream about convincing his parents to buy for them as a belated birthday gift. His iphone buzzed interrupting his reverie. The call was from a blocked number. Val answer. Woman with a thick accent. Val was pretty sure it was his parents housekeeper. Emergence emergency to your father, your father. Val asked which was talking about . He couldnt get her to integrate the thing he could get was to his parents flat which was a mile away. He put the book down, raced outside and hailed a black cat. 21 evelyn gordons instructs the got driver. The twominute drive felt endless. The cant seem to crawl through londons traffic choked streets past daily townhouses and brick apartment blocks and highend restaurant and a granite grocery stores. Val went to the potholes seems he might encounter when you write. His father was hurt. They because of a family argument. Maybe its just he was locked at its computer and need his sons help. The taxi pulled onto evelyn gardens, a wide quite street but instead of having a meeting about cars to park in the middle as well on the sides. Now in addition to the bmws and audis and mopeds, and maintenance was stationed at the curb. Val paid the cabbie and sprinted across the street. His parents lived in a flat on the third floor of white trimmed red brick building. Its heavy black door normally open the advisor was ajar. Val galloped up two flights of stairs. The georges parents apartment was wide open. In the middle of a hallway bill was lying on his back his eyes close. Neck brace tilted his head back at an unnatural angle. Paramedics rustic tube jutted from his mouth. What the f is this . Val screen. He killed himself, his mother gasped. He hung himself with daisies leash. Thats obvious and upsetting way to start this talk and upsetting way to start the book. This was general 26, 2014, and 90s after that i lived in london at the time and was a journalist working for the wall street journal. I got in touch with val because i heard about the suicide, a very Senior Executive at Deutsche Bank and i wanted to learn more. There were rumors flying all over london that broeksmit committed suicide in part because upset about set the been going on at the bank. He was extreme close to the banks ceo at the time, and i wanted to forget what was going on. Bill and his wife had three children val was stepsons light divvied up the task of contacting his widow and his family members with a couple of my colleagues. And i got val. Val had an active social Media Presence at the time. He was in a band called bikini robot army, and the band was active on twitter and instagram and facebook. And val was a character i could tell right away. He was posting lots of pictures about doing wild and crazy stuff, lots of drugs, lots of vaguely pornographic pictures of his exploits with women. He discusses, was a completely appropriate guy. On his website i emailed him and it is myself and said, im looking into your father understand more about what happened and why and hoping we can talk. I had been a journalist at that point for i dont know, like 14 years or so and i written lots of emails of the nature made lots of phone calls of that nature and i been conditioned, like every other journalist, you almost never get a response in a situation and is usually a situation where you maybe send that initial email and you want to be respectful because theres a tragedy and the family is grieving but you also need to be persistent. That was my opening salvo unexpected over the coming days and weeks i would making additional phone calls, emails, maybe showing up at his home. Lo and behold the next day val responded to me and he said what is it you want to know about my father asked i explained i heard rumors about what happened with his dad, and val grudgingly agreed to get on the phone with me a few days later on the condition of my colleagues and i stop arresting the rest of his family, which seemed fair enough. So a few days later i i got one phone with val and the started a journey that has led to this book. Because val it turned out had gotten onto his dads computer or shortly after his death and it figured out the passwords to his personal email addresses. Theres a personal email account, yahoo, gmail accounts inside this account he would eventually find his father had been sending and receiving thousands and thousands of emails and documents related to his work at the bank. And val eventually turn them all over to me. What it showed, bill broeksmit paterno, i started doing a lot of research into who bill broeksmit was and he becomes, he and try to become the protagonists of this book. Bill broeksmit was american, a ministers son in illinois, rural illinois. He became a banker like he was kind of not your normal reckless aggressive banker. He was much more cerebral, thoughtful and intellectual, conservative. He became known both first at Merrill Lynch where he got his start in the banking world and then it Deutsche Bank as the man with the ethical compass and the conscience of the place picky with the guy who, this was an industry dominated dash macwants to go, go, go, step on the gas, shoot first, ask questions later. Bill was kind of a super ego when he was a way to second, this looks a little too easy to actually be right. Shouldnt ask more questions . He was smart enough and respected enough that people listen to him. And so what happened at Deutsche Bank over the years is its kind of a parable for what happened in the Banking Industry writ large over a long period of time. Banks went from being these companies that essentially existed to serve their customers, and they became entities, not only their customers. Their customers, the communities in which they operated, their employees, government and, of course, it was their shareholders, investors, the owners. They went from serving a whole wide range of constituencies like that to serving just one very narrow constituency which was their shareholders. That meant their goal went from doing whats best for clients and communities to doing whats best for shareholders, and that in maximizing profits as quickly as possible. As a got to know bill broeksmit to talking to his friends and family members and former colleagues, and then got to kw him through reading his emails and seeing him in action trying to curtail peoples risktaking trying to remember the fundamental question of is this best for clients . If not, why on earth are we doing it . It was quite an oldfashioned, and i kept thinking about this. We didnt write free much about this at the time because this was 2014, 2015 and its interesting and Deutsche Bank was really Important Financial Institution and really troubled Financial Institution at the time but i was working for an american newspaper and this is a german bank, a European Bank that despite its great problems and despite its big presence in the United States no one really cared. And then in 2016 a certain someone started running for president , and that certain someone had a very, very special relationship with Deutsche Bank. Donald trump was completely offlimits to the mainstream financial world because he had this nasty tendency of defaulting on virtually every loan he received for a very long period of time, and thats not, when banks are looking for customers to do business with, someone who it has welldocumented pattern of stiffing his lenders is generally not your first point of call. And so he was just offlimits. Banks would not touch them. They his phone calls. I heard some crazy stories about the Great Lengths that banks would go to avoid doing business with donald trump, even his friends wouldnt touch him. Theres one anecdote about telling people about. You can tennesseebased we know about trump these days, and so the story goes like this. Its at bear stearns which was, i dont know if anyone remembers bear stearns, it used to be a wall street bank and then it collapsed because it wasnt very well run. Even bear stearns wouldnt touch donald trump. Bear stearns new guy is one of the top executives a guy named ace, and the use of relationship with ace to get his foot in the door and propose that bear stearns lend him when hundred million dollars. Ace told one of the bankers okay, go do with donald trump. He wants 100 million. The banker talks to donald trump. Its not a crazy page trump is making but it felt so they will not lend him anything. He says donald, will call you back when make a decision. He just decided he will not call them back. Trump is probably smart enough to get the message that the lack of return phone call means no, thank you will not be loaning you when hundred million dollars. Trump didnt get the message and kept calling the guy back over and over again. The banker did not have to say no and such is wouldnt answer, return his phone calls. Trump took ace greenberg, this kind boss, probably his bosses boss after breakfast and said ace, why can he get my phone calls returned . It so rude. Ace come stomping back in after breakfast and says what you do not return his phone calls . Its summary. The banker says we can solve this problem by lending him 100 main dollars otherwise i dont know which one you to do do. Ace says we are obviously not doing that but they got away to solve this problem. The banker thinks about it for a look at it and finally decides hes got a plan. He donald trump and he says donald, im so sorry ive been dodging or phone calls. It truly rude a guide to say we cant make this loan. Trump says why cant you . He says ace greenberg doesnt want to. [laughing] it gets better contestant. Ace greenberg says or trump says, what i talk about . Ace and i are buddies. Just this month i had with him. The banker says yes, dollar, d thats just the problem. Ace came back and said there are four people we can do business with what we dont want to be on the other side of the loan from. Henry kravitz, l gates, Warren Buffett and donald trump. [laughing] and trump pauses for a second and thinks about it and says, yeah, i can see that. That makes sense. [laughing] and i heard that story and i just thought to myself, i sometimes discount the value that Investment Bankers provide and the solutions they put up and had to say this to be a whole new appreciation for the cleverness of some Investment Bankers. Anyway, Deutsche Bank did not have the scruples that bear stearns had when he came to deciding whom to link to. And it was so eager to develop a foothold in america and develop a presence on wall street that it needed to pick up the scraps that of the banks wouldnt touch. Donald trump was one of those scraps, and its starting in the late 1990s the bank started making low turn out to be about 2 billion in loans to trump over the next 20 years. By the time trump was elected president he still owed about 350 million. Deutsche bank was by far his largest creditor. They financed all of this marquee projects including here in washington, what used to be the Old Post Office building that is now the trump something hotel. I come sort of looking back at this relationship i develop with val, everything i learned about his son dash son of thing i let his father and his fathers career and being the voice of conservatism and Risk Management inside this reckless outofcontrol bank, and i realize maybe this was the vehicle to tell the story of how this random, obscure german bank with a name that no one can pronounce and no one no, no onn america has heard of, how it became not only synonymous with financial destruction and economic doom and mayhem, but also really helped propel donald trump to the white house. So i spent the past two years or so reporting and writing about this for the New York Times. Primarily focused on the trump relationship because i already knew the Deutsche Bank story. And it has just been, im a nerd, and i spent a lot of time probably the past ten years focusing on an attesting that Deutsche Bank and wondering why no one would pay attention, by editors kind of rolled her eyes when he started talking about it. Its been such a pleasure to actually have a way to tell the story now in a way that amazingly people seem to care. Thats my stance and i would be happy to answer questions. Sure people have a lot of questions about trump and ive lots of answers. [laughing] [applause] i was told to make sure people use the microphone. Given your research on the origins and history of Deutsche Bank, is it your view that the banks financing of auschwitz, which i assume included its crematoriums, was that, did they know of what they were doing . Yes. Well, its not quite that simple, but first of all their support of nazis is just more extensive than the construction oshawa spigot also finance the construction right next door to a chemical factory that provided poison gas. You guys know this. Deutsche bank was the company that contacted many jewish owned businesses all over europe as germany conquered those country. It took over the local banks and stock stop lending and kind of help get juice out of the companies that off the customer ranks. It to