The biggest German bank, Deutsche Bank, on Thursday posted its first annual loss since World War II owing to a catastrophic fourth quarter but vowed to survive the global financial crisis.

The bank said it had made a net loss of 3.9 billion euros (US$5 billion) in 2008, a figure that reached 4.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

Deutsche Bank chairman Josef Ackermann acknowledged being "very disappointed" at the quarterly figures but said that "since the trust and support of our shareholders is critical for us, we recommend a dividend for the year 2008 of 50 cents per share."

That is well below the 4.50 euros per share dividend paid in 2007 however, and the lack of a detailed outlook for 2009 worried investors, who drove the bank's share price down by 4.19 percent to 20.35 euros in morningFrankfurttrading.

In 2008, Deutsche Bank revised the total value of its assets by 7 billion euros, more than three times the 2007 write-downs of 2.3 billion euros.

In the fourth quarter alone, asset write-downs amounted to 5.3 billion euros.