Dark Towers

Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction

De: David Enrich

Narrado por: B. J. Harrison

"In Dark Towers, David Enrich tells the story of how one of the world's mightiest banks careened off the rails, threatening everything from our financial system to our democracy through its reckless entanglement with Donald Trump. Darkly fascinating and yet all too real, it's a tale that will keep you up at night." (John Carreyrou, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author of Bad Blood)

A searing exposé of the most scandalous bank in the world, including its shadowy ties to Donald Trump's business empire

On a rainy Sunday in 2014, a senior executive at Deutsche Bank was found hanging in his London apartment. Bill Broeksmit had helped build the 150-year-old financial institution into a global colossus, and his sudden death was a mystery, made more so by the bank's efforts to deter investigation. Broeksmit, it turned out, was a man who knew too much.

In Dark Towers, award-winning journalist David Enrich reveals the truth about Deutsche Bank and its epic path of devastation. Tracing the bank's history back to its propping up of a default-prone American developer in the 1880s, helping the Nazis build Auschwitz, and wooing Eastern Bloc authoritarians, he shows how in the 1990s, via a succession of hard-charging executives, Deutsche made a fateful decision to pursue Wall Street riches, often at the expense of ethics and the law.

Soon, the bank was manipulating markets, violating international sanctions to aid terrorist regimes, scamming investors, defrauding regulators, and laundering money for Russian oligarchs. Ever desperate for an American foothold, Deutsche also started doing business with a self-promoting real estate magnate nearly every other bank in the world deemed too dangerous to touch: Donald Trump. Over the next 20 years, Deutsche executives loaned billions to Trump, the Kushner family, and an array of scandal-tarred clients, including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Dark Towers is the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial recklessness and criminality - the corporate equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. It is also the story of a man who was consumed by fear of what he'd seen at the bank - and his son's obsessive search for the secrets he kept.

©2020 David Enrich (P)2020 HarperAudio

After listening, believe it would be worth reading

The inner workings of an institution like Deutsche Bank would be a tough story to tell - especially to those of us who cannot stand to balance our checkbooks. Enrich does a great job of telling a story of the greed that fuels financial traders and bankers. It's a game. And Trump is good at playing the game. All it takes is finding a willing patsy of a partner like Rosemary Vrablic and Deutsche Bank. There's more to this story other than Trump, of course, but Trump is a prime example of how twisted and crooked the financial system is right now. Not to mention enabling. When it comes tumbling down, which is inevitable, t's going to be extremely ugly.

I had to laugh at some reviewers comments that the narrator sounds like a robot. I was listening to this book using my iPhone while dusting the bedroom. My husband heard some of it and commented that the narrator sounded like HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey". It didn't bother me. I thought B.J. Harrison's narration was even and calming.

Good book.

Thought it gave a solid view of Deutsche Bank, but it only tells part of the story. Secrecy World and Russian Roulette were better.

fascinating tale of criminal bankers

really well written - keeps you interested in the shocking evidence of corruption at one of the world's top banks and how Trump was literally bank ruled by them

Follow the Money

A detailed account of how unbridled greed and a culture if corruption in one if the world's most powerful banks contributed to the death of an executive whose son relentlessly searched for the cause of his father's suicide. Told in an appealing story telling style, the author reveals how Deutsche Bank was involved in everything from money laundering for Russian oligarchs to financing Iranian-backed terrorists. Donald J Trump was beloved by this bank who lent him hundreds of millions when no other bank would touch him. Deutsche also handled suspicious payments to Russians from Jared Kushner. Evidence that Trump's Deutsche Bank loans were backed by the Kremlin is disclosed in the book. This money link to Moscow has yet to be fully investigated.

It's worth a listen

Well written well researched the story isn't at it's finished point but now was the right time to publish on voice to text thing list so no punctuation War speller grammar check

Full Circle

As an ex Federal Investigator with a background in forensic accounting, I understood this book to be key and essential in understanding the psyche and mens rea of one of the biggest frauds and criminals in American history.

One question the book fails to correlate is, if Trump is a Billionaire, why would he need to make installment payments to Stephanie Clifford “Stormy?”

Makes no financial sense other than he may not even be a millionaire.

Welcome Elucidation

Following the tangle of people involved in the downward path of Deutsche Bank is compelling. But there is so much more to be learned that even after taking in the breadth and the depth of this complex institution and its skirting of the laws of the countries it supposedly serves, it is obvious there is much more to be uncovered. The book teases by allowing glimpses of where Trump and Russia connect through the bank, but then that information must wait for Congress and the FBI to complete their investigations.

Curious about Trump/Russia?

The President is encumbered with, probably, 50% of his personal assets by loan guarantees to VSB, or when it goes to court, DB, as VSB would never make a direct claim , when he leaves office. He can’t leave faster, the Russians are not Citigroup. Seems like a good time to buy DB at 9 a share (w a market cap of 20 billion) and Merkel having a PhD in office to “kill the silent enemy” quite successfully.

The request Trump made to the US to UK Ambassador that the British Open is played at Turnsberry in Scotland , one of his courses financed by DB, then sold to VSB, ( per his son), exposed today, plus the Kushner scrutiny of foreign agent registration, plus the w/d of NATO troops to defend Ukraine=FAKE NEWS, WITCH HUNT.

The question is who collects the 300mm , DB or the Russians when he leaves. Maybe a quid pro quo we’ll never know. Great book.

Banking ain't pretty that's for sure.

Massive powerful undertaking, Trump is who he is, but what's worse is the systemic failure regardless of Trump. Technology, enforcement, some in fourth estate, ethics all fell down. Its expansive, detailed clear story telling, and facts. Banking ain't pretty

Required Reading

I believe this book gives a comprehensive and accurate accounting of Deutche Bank, Donald Trump, banking and financial corruption that exists in are government and banks today.