Berlin  - The German government's own bank, KfW, suspended two top executive officers from their duties Thursday after blunders that lost KfW 770 million dollars in the Lehman Brothers failure.

In the worst blunder, KfW deposited 350 million euros with Lehman on Monday, just hours before Lehmann declared itself insolvent, although the Lehman failure had been Sunday's top world news story.

KfW, which holds government stock portfolios and makes soft loans to home-owners and students, suspended executive board members Detlef Leinberger and Peter Fleischer, said German Economics Minister Peter Glos.

Glos chairs the supervisory board of KfW, dubbed "Germany's dumbest bank" by the mass-circulation paper Bild on Thursday. A more junior manager was also suspended.

KfW said earlier its exposure to the Lehman failure, including the unwise remittance and 186 million euros in credit, totalled 536 million euros (772 million dollars).

The supervisory board also approved the sale of a KfW subsidiary, IKB, to US private-equity investor Lone Star.

Under a contract negotiated in August, Lone Star is to pay 115 million euros for KfW's 90.8 per cent of IKB.

In Germany's worst hit from the US sub-prime meltdown, IKB lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year after investing in nearly worthless structured-finance paper secured with US home mortgages. (dpa)