The Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 began with the collapse of the banking houses of Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky and Leendert Pieter de Neufville, triggered by the end of the Seven Years' War and a sudden drop in grain and commodity prices. The crisis spread from Amsterdam to Germany and Scandinavia, causing a wave of bank failures and a severe credit contraction across Northern Europe. It exposed the vulnerabilities of international finance and the interconnectedness of European markets.

The crisis resonated in the writings of Enlightenment thinkers and poets who questioned the moral foundations of commercial society. In Germany, the Gotzkowsky affair became a cautionary tale about financial speculation, referenced in literary works that critiqued the excesses of the emerging capitalist economy, including the poetry of the Sturm und Drang movement.