The high price of Deutsche Bank's fall

In 2005, Deutsche Bank, then a powerhouse in the selling of risky derivatives on a global scale, was minting money.

To mark the moment, the bank's profit engine – its global markets division – commissioned a book about itself. The remembrance would celebrate how Deutsche Bank, once a sleepy lender to German car companies, had transformed itself in just 10 years into a force in financial engineering, selling interest-rate swaps, credit derivatives and opaque tax-slashing investment vehicles to the world's wealthy elite.