Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim
Alfred Paul Ernst Freiherr von Oppenheim (born May 5, 1934 in Cologne ; † January 5, 2005 there ) was a German private banker .
Life
Oppenheim, a descendant of Salomon Oppenheim , who founded a credit institute in Bonn in 1789 and moved it to Cologne in 1798 , and the eldest son of Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim , studied at Amherst and Harvard until 1960 . In 1964 he became personally liable partner of Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. KGaA , in 1978 he took over the management of the shareholders' committee. Since 1993 he has been chairman of the shareholders' committee and the supervisory board of the bank. His motto were: "We are discreet, more secret than secret" and "We do everything for a few."
Oppenheim was also Vice President of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), from 1987 President of the Franco-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Paris and President of the German Society for Foreign Policy in Berlin . He founded the Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation to promote science. He got involved in politics repeatedly. In 1980 he gave the opposition leader in the Bundestag, Helmut Kohl (CDU), secretly and in cash, 1.3 million DM for the election campaign; this illegal donation became known only later, because the GDR secret service had bugged the CDU treasurer's car phone. Alfred von Oppenheim polemicized in 1998 with great sensation against the Cologne city administration because they had approved the Wehrmacht exhibition ("War of Extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 - 1944") in the city Bundeswehr discredited. As President of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK), he called for more fixed-term employment contracts, less co-determination by works councils, faster layoffs and savings for pensioners and the unemployed.
In 1997 Alfred von Oppenheim set up a chair for research into anti-Semitism, racism and the Holocaust at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.
Since 1962 he was married to his wife Jeane. He had three children. When he was last mentioned in the list of the richest Germans, he was in 25th place with three billion euros in private assets. He left the Evangelical Church in 1984 because it participated in the peace movement against the stationing of US medium-range missiles.
Oppenheim died in 2005 at the age of 70. The funeral service was held in Cologne Cathedral . The family grave is located in the Melaten cemetery (HWG, between lit. K + L).
Honors
- Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (October 14, 2004)
- Honorary Senator of the University of Cologne
- Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1985)
- Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Commander's Cross of the Legion of Honor of the French Republic
literature
- Gabriele Teichmann: Alfred von Oppenheim (1934-2005). In: Hans Pohl (Ed.): German bankers of the 20th century. Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-515-08954-8 , pp. 295-310.
- Werner Rügemer : The banker (3rd blackened edition). Unasked obituary for Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim . Noun, 2006, ISBN 978-3-939816-00-3 .
Web links
- Press release from Sal. Oppenheim & Cie. on his 70th birthday (PDF file; 16 kB)
- Press release - Sal. Oppenheim mourns the loss of Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim (PDF file; 16 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Rügemer: The banker. Unasked obituary for Alfred von Oppenheim. 3rd blackened edition 2006, p. 18
- ↑ Rügemer, p. 32 f.
- ↑ Rügemer, p. 34 f.
- ↑ markt + economy 2/2000, p. 7; 5/2001, p. 12 (magazine of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce)
- ↑ manager magazin October 2004, p. 13
- ↑ Rügemer, p. 43
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oppenheim, Alfred Freiherr von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Oppenheim, Alfred Paul Ernst Freiherr von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German private banker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 5, 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cologne |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 5, 2005 |
| Place of death | Cologne |