Friedrich Wilhelm Christians

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Friedrich Wilhelm Christians (born May 1, 1922 in Paderborn ; † May 24, 2004 in Düsseldorf ) was a German banker .

Life

Honor plaque at the Theodorianum grammar school in Paderborn: Right page, bottom: Friedrich Wilhelm Christians

Christians was born as the son of a senior engineer, attended the Theodorianum grammar school in Paderborn and graduated from high school there in 1940. He took part in the Second World War as an officer , most recently in East Prussia . After studying law in Göttingen and Bonn ( doctorate in 1951), Christians joined the Rheinisch-Westfälische Bank in 1951 (from 1957: Deutsche Bank ). Since Christians originally intended to become a diplomat, he believed in only a brief guest role at Deutsche Bank. In 1954 he was appointed bank director by Hermann Josef Abs . In 1965 he was appointed to the board and was a full board member from 1967. In 1976 he became spokesman for the board of directors of Deutsche Bank, together with Wilfried Guth until 1985 , then with Alfred Herrhausen until 1988 . Until then, Deutsche Bank had regularly had two equal spokesmen for the Board of Management. From 1988 to 1997 he was chairman of the bank's supervisory board . From 1975 to 1979 he was President of the Association of German Banks . Christians was the last board member of Deutsche Bank who had his place of work at the Königsallee in Düsseldorf before the board of directors completely relocated to Frankfurt am Main . Christians lived in Meerbusch .

His activities to expand trade with states beyond the Iron Curtain earned him the reputation of being the country's secret foreign minister . Together with Otto Wolff von Amerongen , he brokered the barter deal between Mannesmann and the USSR , in which pipelines were exchanged for natural gas supplies . In the Soviet Union he also met the art collector George Costakis , a meeting that shaped the cultural activities of Deutsche Bank.

Christians took part in the deliberations of Finance Minister Theo Waigel on the monetary union of the two German states against the 1: 1 exchange rate of the East German Mark to the DM .

In 1994, Christians made a significant contribution to the memory of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the University of Königsberg , where Immanuel Kant taught.

Awards

Fonts

  • Roads to Russia - bankers in the field of tension between East and West . Hoffmann et al. Campe, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-455-08337-4 .
  • Entrepreneurs and Society . Employer association d. Metallindustrie Köln, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-88575-017-1 .

literature

  • Christopher Kopper : Friedrich Wilhelm Christians (1922-2004) . In: Friedrich Gerhard Hohmann (Hrsg.): Westfälische Lebensbilder 19 (=  publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia . New series 16). Aschendorff, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-402-15117-4 , pp. 225-240 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of high school graduates of the Association of Former Theodorians, page 23 , 1985, Bonifatius-Druckerei, Paderborn
  2. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. (PDF) State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Edmund Spohr, Hatto Küffner (Ed.): Düsseldorf. A city between tradition and vision - Town Hall Compendium . Düsseldorf 2015, p. 133 ISBN 978-3-7700-1535-1
  4. ↑ Martin Oehlen: songs of praise to the helpers in need. For the first time in eleven years, honor for the art patrons . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . Cologne November 28, 2000.
  5. ↑ "Mister Deutsche Bank" is dead. In: Manager Magazin . May 25, 2004, accessed March 22, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Christians, Friedrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Paderborn
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2004
Place of death Dusseldorf