Dieter Spethmann

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Dieter Spethmann (center) at the Leipzig trade fair in 1978

Dieter Spethmann (born March 27, 1926 in Essen ; † February 1, 2016 in Düsseldorf ) was a German lawyer and industry manager. He was CEO of Thyssen AG . Spethmann modernized Thyssen and discovered the Transrapid technology in the former Kassel traditional company Henschel-Werke , which was taken over by Thyssen.

family

Spethmann was the son of the economic historian and historiographer of the Ruhr mining industry Hans Spethmann and his wife Margarethe, née. Besthorn. He was married and the father of six children.

education

Since he had skipped a class in elementary school, Spethmann attended the secondary school in Essen- Bredeney at the age of nine . At the beginning of March 1943 he graduated from high school there. Then Spethmann began an apprenticeship at Friedrich Krupp AG , which was interrupted by the Reich Labor Service and being drafted into the Navy . His last rank was ensign at sea.

From 1948 he studied law and economics in Kiel , Bonn and Cologne . During his legal preparatory service at the Essen regional court , he also worked as a lawyer at Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG . In 1952 he passed the Great State Examination in Law and was awarded his doctorate in Cologne in 1954 with the dissertation The Legal Status of a Trade Union when his trade union was merged with a stock corporation to become Dr. jur. PhD. In 1953 he was admitted to the bar.

Professional background

After graduation, Spethmann worked for a short time in a law firm in Essen. In 1952 he got his first permanent position in the industry at Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG . His job was to renegotiate his employer's foreign debt.

From 1955 he worked for August-Thyssen-Hütte AG (ATH), which had emerged from Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG two years earlier. There he was initially assistant to General Director Hans-Günther Sohl . In 1958 he became head of the finance and investments departments, and four years later he was a member of the board of Thyssen-owned Handelsunion AG. From 1964 he was chairman of the board of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG (DEW) until he moved to the board of ATH in 1970.

In April 1973 Spethmann succeeded Hans-Günther Sohl as CEO. He mastered the challenges arising from the first major steel crisis in Germany and Europe. He diversified, modernized and internationalized the Thyssen group. For example, he bought the US automotive supplier Budd , which was sometimes heavily criticized.

Under his leadership, Thyssen's sales grew from ten to 36 billion DM and the number of employees from 92,000 to 152,000. In 1991 he left the group because he was unable to reach an agreement with the supervisory board on the succession and future strategy.

In 1974 Spethmann was elected chairman of the Iron and Steel Industry Association and held this office with a brief interruption until 1984. In this context, he advocated a joint solution to the steel crisis at European level.

Transrapid

Spethmann is the inventor of the Transrapid, not in a technical but in an economic sense. When he discovered the technology by chance among his technicians at the Henschel plant in Kassel - Henschel belonged to Rheinstahl , in which Thyssen had owned a majority since 1973 - he was immediately enthusiastic. Since then he has campaigned for the construction of a Transrapid line in Germany, albeit unsuccessfully.

Further commitment

In guest comments in the Handelsblatt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as well as in letters to ministers and decision-makers, Spethmann commented on topics such as the euro and what he believed to be the wrong interest rate level in Germany.

Since 1995 Dieter Spethmann has been Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board of IKB Deutsche Industriebank . Later he was also a member of the advisory board of the Industrie-Club Düsseldorf .

Together with Franz Ludwig Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Joachim Starbatty , Dieter Spethmann sued the Federal Constitutional Court against the Treaty of Lisbon at the end of January 2009 after Peter Gauweiler (CSU), the Left Party parliamentary group and Klaus Buchner had already filed a lawsuit. He also sued the new accompanying laws, which had to be revised after the Lisbon judgment . However, Spethmann's complaints on this subject were unsuccessful.

In May 2010, Spethmann, together with Joachim Starbatty, Wilhelm Hankel , Wilhelm Nölling and Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider , filed a lawsuit with the Federal Constitutional Court against the Monetary Union Financial Stability Act , which regulates German participation in loans to overcome the Greek financial crisis . In their opinion, the law violates the no- bail-out clause in the AEU Treaty and the German Basic Law . The lawsuit was dismissed on September 7, 2011.

In spring 2013, Spethmann was one of the main draftsmen in founding Alternative für Deutschland .

Mandates

  • Benecke-Kaliko AG, Hanover: Member of the Supervisory Board
  • JM Voith AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1976 to 1999
  • Ruhrgas AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1979 to 1996, Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1988 to 1996
  • IKB Deutsche Industriebank: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1970 to 1995, Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1977 to 1995
  • Munich Re: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1977, Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1978 to 1996
  • Deutsche BP: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1973 to 1989, Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1983 to 1989
  • Ruhrkohle AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1974 to 1984, Chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1979 to 1983
  • Deutsche Hypothekenbank: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1971 to 1981
  • Ruhrchemie AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1972 to 1976
  • Siemens AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1973 to 1993
  • Gesellschaft für Stromwirtschaft - Chairman of the Electricity Committee 1973 to 1980
  • Dresdner Bank AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1981 to 1993
  • RWE AG: Member of the Supervisory Board from 1982 to 1992
  • Swiss Bank Corporation: Council of International Advisors from 1979 to 1996
  • The Budd Company, Detroit: Board of Directors from 1978 to 1991
  • L'Air Liquide, Paris: Comité International from 1987 to 1994
  • Unilever NV: Advisory Director from 1970 to 1996
  • Federation of German Industries (BDI): Vice President from 1981 to 1991
  • Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahl: Chairman from 1974 to 1984
  • Chugai Pharmaceutical, Tokyo: US Board of Directors
  • Morgan Grenfell Equity Partners, Edinburgh: Member Advisory Committee
  • Kelso & Company, New York: Board of Directors
  • Pan Holding, Luxembourg: Board of Directors
  • Donors' Association for German Science: Curator
  • Robert Koch Foundation eV: Curator
  • Dr. Meyer Struckmann Foundation: Board of Directors

honors and awards

  • 1984: Knight of the French Legion of Honor
  • 1985: Honorary member of the ironworks people
  • Cross of Merit First Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • 1986: Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • 1990: Professor by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • 1990: Honorary doctorate from RWTH Aachen University (Dr.-Ing. E. h.)
  • 1995: Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board of IKB
  • 2003: Kassel Citizen Prize
  • Honorary member of the steel institute VDEh
  • Honorary chairman of the IHK Dortmund
  • Honorary curator of the University of Witten / Herdecke

Publications

  • The legal status of a trade if its trade union is merged with a public company. Dissertation 1953.
  • Corporate management today and tomorrow. West German publishing house, Cologne / Opladen 1967.
  • Framework conditions for the success of further training measures in the company. C. Rudolf Poensgen Foundation, Düsseldorf 1976.
  • The situation of the European steel industry. Swiss Bank Corporation, Zurich 1978.
  • Eastern Europe looks to the west. German World Economic Society, Berlin 1992.
  • Common money is common destiny. What will happen to the euro? Hohenheim Verlag, Stuttgart / Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-89850-088-8 .
  • The struggle for the Lisbon Treaty. The struggle of German civil society for European integration . By Markus C. Kerber, Dieter Spethmann, Joachim Starbatty et al. Lucius & Lucius Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8282-0500-0 .
  • Germany - the third industrial revolution. August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-940061-46-1 .
  • Common money is common destiny. Five essays. August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2010, 2nd revised edition, ISBN 978-3-940061-47-8 .
  • The euro is looting Germany. August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-940061-64-5 .
  • Time bomb national debt - no euro bonds and no ESM. August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-940061-76-8 .
  • Unemployed in the name of the euro. August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-940061-96-6 .

literature

  • Elisabeth Birte Spethmann (Ed.) Magnetfelder. Dieter Spethmann on his 65th birthday. Düsseldorf 1991.
  • Michael Kamp : Dieter Spethmann. A portrait . August Dreesbach Verlag, Munich 2012. ISBN 978-3-940-06170-6 .
  • Bernd Ziesemer (Hrsg.): Pioneers of the German economy. What we can learn from the great entrepreneurs. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2006. ISBN 978-3-593-38121-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice Dieter Spethmann faz.net , February 6, 2016.
  2. Thomas Zorn: Economy: Politics of open inflation . Focus 28 (2010), July 12, 2010, pp. 110–111, accessed on February 5, 2016.
  3. ^ Another lawsuit against the EU Reform Treaty of Lisbon in Karlsruhe . dpa article on eu-info.de, January 27, 2009, accessed on February 5, 2016.
  4. EU Treaty: Now it depends on Horst Köhler . dpa article in the Hamburger Abendblatt , September 18, 2009, accessed on February 5, 2016.
  5. Alternative for Germany wants to abolish the euro welt.de of March 3, 2013 (accessed October 11, 2017)
  6. ^ Obituary notice Dieter Spethmann faz.net , February 6, 2016.
  7. Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 38, No. 125, July 12, 1986.