André Leysen

André Leysen (born June 11, 1927 ; died July 11, 2015 ) was a Belgian businessman and business manager.

Life

André Leysen grew up in a Flemish Catholic German-friendly family. As he admitted in his memory book "Hinter dem Spiegel" (1996), he was an enthusiastic supporter of German National Socialism at a young age. He became a member of the Hitler Youth and made it up to the rank of allegiance leader. During the war he took part in military training courses in the Westerwald. His brother fought in the Flemish Legion of the Waffen SS. André Leysen experienced the end of the war in Berlin as an employee of the Flemish government in exile under René Lagrou , which was founded after the liberation of Belgium in September 1944 . After the collapse of the Nazi regime, he was imprisoned in Belgium for four months. His later economic career led him to the top of European companies. Among other things, he was the supervisory board chairman of the Agfa-Gevaert Group and Hapag-Lloyd AG as well as a member of the supervisory boards of Bayer AG, Philips Electronics, BMW, Deutsche Bank, Veba and Deutsche Telekom. As a member of the board of directors of the Treuhandanstalt, he was involved in the economic restructuring of the five new federal states after reunification.

Fonts

• Behind the mirror. A youth in Flanders 1939–1945. Munich 1996

Web links

• Marion Schmitz-Reiners: On the death of André Leysen