FRANKFURT— Historians combing through Deutsche Bank AG archives have found evidence that the biggest German bank helped finance construction of the Auschwitz death camp, the chief historian of the bank said Thursday.

Manfred Pohl, director of the bank's historical institute, said it was the first time that Deutsche Bank had been linked to the financing of companies that built the Nazi death camp. Other recently unearthed documents showed that the bank serviced accounts for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, which deposited proceeds from auctions of property confiscated from deported Jews, he said.

Mr. Pohl said the bank's archivists had found detailed loan records to construction companies that built facilities for "Waffen-SS Auschwitz," the camp's security police. They also found records of loans by Deutsche Bank to companies for the construction of the IG Farben chemicals plant adjacent to Auschwitz.

The revelations follow heightened scrutiny in the United States of the Nazi-era past of Deutsche Bank after it announced plans last year to acquire Bankers Trust Corp., the eighth-largest U.S. bank.