Edward A. Tenenbaum

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Edward Adam Tenenbaum (born November 10, 1921 in New York , † October 14, 1975 ) was an American officer and economist. He is considered the "father of the German mark ".

Life

Tenenbaum was the son of Jewish emigrants from Poland. In 1942 he finished his undergraduate studies at Yale University with a thesis on National Socialism vs. International Capitalism . This was rated summa cum laude . As the best thesis of the year 1942, it was published in 1942 as a book by Yale University Press, in line with local tradition. In the same year Tenenbaum was drafted into the US Army , where he completed an officer training in psychological warfare . In 1945 Tenenbaum was sent to Germany, where he was the first US officer to enter Buchenwald concentration camp in April .

Memorial plaque for the work of Tenenbaum and his colleagues, Kassel-Rothwesten

After the Second World War , Tenenbaum joined the staff of General Lucius D. Clay , the military governor of the American zone of occupation in Germany. Here he was largely responsible for planning the currency reform in Germany in 1948 . Under his leadership and under strict secrecy, eleven German financial experts were forced to work at the Rothwesten air base of the former German air force in the "Posen" building from April 21 to June 8, 1948 as part of the so-called currency conclave. There they formulated the necessary laws, ordinances and leaflets of the military governments of the three western zones for the introduction of the new money in German according to his specifications. The name of the new currency "Deutsche Mark" also goes back to Tenenbaum.

Tenenbaum later worked as a freelance financial advisor at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, among others . He died on October 14, 1975 in a traffic accident.

Honors

In the original rooms at the scene of the conclave, in the "Posen" house in the Rothwesten district of Fulda , the "Museum Currency Reform 1948" documents the conclave with original inventory, many original documents and objects. The street leading there was named "Edward-Tenenbaum-Straße" in honor of Tenenbaum.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Ulrike Herrmann : Germany, an economic fairy tale . Why is it no wonder that we have become rich . Westend Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-86489-263-9 , pp. 39-40.
  2. ↑ Michael Schärer: Cradle of the D-Mark and café of the 50s. In: hna.de , September 10, 2014, accessed on February 16, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Tenenbaum, Edward A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tenenbaum, Edward Adam (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American officer and economist
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1975