The present thesis is the first comprehensive analysis of the Swiss regional banks' crisis of the 1990s. It challenges the existing common narrative of the crisis with regards to two main points: Firstly, it proposes that the crisis did not start in 1991 with the closure of the Savings & Loan Bank Thun, but earlier, in 1990. This in agreement with two recent chronologies of banking crises and further evidence presented. Secondly, it questions the function of real estate prices and proposes that real estate prices amplified the ongoing crisis rather than triggered it. The strict theoretical succession of interest rate increase(s), real estate price declines, high amortization due to credit defaults and financial instability in the style of the Great Financial Crisis is viewed as rather misleading and inadequate to describe the crisis. Instead, a deferred restructuring was triggered by the interest rate hikes through more direct transmission channels than the real estate price declines, which were only significant from 1992 on, and amplified the crisis rather than caused it. Since access to restricted documents was not granted by the Swiss financial market supervisory authority FINMA, the paper mainly draws on existing literature, newspaper articles and data of the Swiss National Bank (SNB).