Hans-Olaf Henkel

Henkel at the Federal Press Conference (January 2014)

Hans-Olaf Henkel (born March 14, 1940 in Hamburg ) is a German politician and publicist . Previously, he was a manager at IBM , President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and President of the Leibniz Association . After decades as a political observer, he was elected to the European Parliament for one term in 2014 for the AfD . From March 2014 to April 2015, Henkel was deputy spokesman and member of the party's national executive committee. In response to the election of Frauke Petry as the new federal chairman, he resigned from the party in July 2015. From July 2015 to September 2018 he belonged to the party ALFA or LKR, which had split off from the AfD .

Life

Hans-Olaf Henkel grew up as a half-orphan with his mother and grandparents in Hamburg-Lemsahl-Mellingstedt . His father, who ran a general agency for paper mills , had died in Hungary towards the end of the Second World War . The popular singer Richard Germer (1900–1993), popular in Hamburg , became his stepfather.

He attended a total of eight schools. After completing secondary school , he completed an apprenticeship as a freight forwarder at Kuehne + Nagel in Hamburg . About the night school he attended from 1960 courses in operation and economy and sociology at the then union- Hamburg Academy of Social Economy .

Henkel is a member of the board of trustees of the German Family Association . In 2004 he divorced his wife Marlene, with whom he has three children. He has been married to the psychologist and educationalist Bettina Hannover since 2005 . He is the father of two sons and two daughters.

Activity in business and science

From 1962 he worked in various management functions at IBM Germany , and in 1987 he was appointed chairman of the management board. From September 1993 to December 1994 he was head of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa, based in Paris . From 1995 to 2000 he was (on an honorary basis) President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

From 2001 to 2005, Henkel was President of the Leibniz Association . When he passed, a new species of butterfly was named after him, the “Bracca olafhenkeli”, and the “ Hans-Olaf-Henkel Prize - Prize for Science Policy”, which is awarded every two years.

From 2006 to 2013, Henkel advised Bank of America as “Senior Advisor” for the German-speaking region in order to expand its market position in investment banking .

Until 2013, Henkel was a member of the supervisory boards of Bayer AG ( Leverkusen ), Continental AG ( Hanover ), Daimler Luft- und Raumfahrt AG (Munich), SMS GmbH ( Düsseldorf ), Ringier AG ( Zofingen / Switzerland) and Heliad Equity Partners (Frankfurt / Zurich). According to his own statements, he gave back these supervisory board mandates when he joined the Alternative für Deutschland party .

Since November 2000 he has been teaching as an honorary professor at the Chair of International Management at the University of Mannheim , where he holds the lecture “Management in a globalized world”.

Political commitment

Commitment to human rights

Hans-Olaf Henkel has been a member of the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) since 1996 , to which he donates his fees for books and television appearances. On the occasion of his 60th birthday, he also donated 150,000 German marks to AI with the request to “step up efforts for women's rights, especially in the Islamic world”. Henkel rejects the human right to work, anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because it cannot be guaranteed any more than “eternal life”.

In Cuba , Henkel worked to improve the human rights situation and, in particular, to abolish the death penalty . He met regularly for talks with Fidel Castro . The dialogue with Castro broke off in 2003 when he had 75 dissidents arrested and three executed. Henkel protested against this approach.

Henkel campaigns for the persecuted Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and in 2011 initiated the “Berlin Appeal” calling for the release of Ai, who was then imprisoned in an unknown location. In this context, Henkel criticized the in its view insufficient commitment by German companies active in China to human rights and democracy.

In its commitment to human rights and democracy, Henkel is convinced that free trade and a market economy inevitably lead to an improvement in the human rights situation and democratic rights in a country.

Party politics

In the early federal elections in 2005 he supported the FDP , but in December 2011 he did not certify it to have a future due to its "departure from the principle of liberalism". Henkel initially supported the Federal Association of Free Voters when it was still against the euro . In his column “Henkel dry” in Handelsblatt Online, he was critical of the German government's euro rescue policy. Together with Hubert Aiwanger and Stephan Werhahn, he wanted to lead the free voters to the Bundestag in 2013.

In January 2014, it became known that Henkel had joined the AfD a few weeks earlier and thus joined a political party for the first time. As a result, he was nominated for second place on the AfD's list of candidates for the 2014 European elections and gave the AfD a loan of one million euros in the European election campaign. He was also elected deputy spokesman at a party conference in March.

Henkel resigned from the party executive committee in April 2015 due to political differences. The reason he cited "attempts by legal ideologues" to take over the party. After Frauke Petry was elected as party leader, Henkel resigned from the AfD in protest against the party's change of direction. He then joined the party, Alliance for Progress and Awakening (ALFA), newly founded by Bernd Lucke , which in November 2016 assumed the new name Liberal-Conservative Reformer (LKR). In November 2015, Henkel distanced itself drastically from its previous party: "We have created a real monster". He sees the AfD today “clearly on a right slide” and as “a kind of NPD - light , maybe even identical to the NPD”. At the end of September 2018, Henkel left the LKR.

Member of Parliament

Henkel was a member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019. There he was Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and a member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI). He was also a deputy in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and a member of the Delegation for relations with Japan (D-JP) and the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China (D-CN).

Journalism and Political Positions

In his writings and public appearances, Hans-Olaf Henkel represents economically liberal and supply- political positions. He advocates globalization , federalism reform , “less state within the state”, against “equalization” and for “more competition”. With regard to globalization, he often uses the image of a “sympathetic triangle” in lectures, the sides of which stand for market economy , democracy and human rights . He is for the minimization of the welfare state and for the lowering of taxes. The development of the European Monetary Union that has been strived for so far is not conducive to the integration of Europe , but rather leads to a kind of "EUSSR" in his opinion.

He is a frequent interviewee and guest on political talk shows and radio interviews as well as a founding member of the Convention for Germany (which he left in January 2014 due to his candidacy for the European Parliament ), an association sponsored by large companies, foundations and private individuals, which is under the leadership of Alt - According to his own statements , Federal President Roman Herzog is committed to the “reform of the reform capability” of Germany. He is a regular guest author for the Handelsblatt (Monday column “Henkel Trocken”, discontinued due to joining the AfD), Focus , the Welt and the Hamburger Abendblatt . He was also the author of Bild and Junge Freiheit and wrote articles for peculiarly free and the free world .

In order to be able to achieve stable government relationships in a five-party system, in 2008 Henkel demanded the introduction of majority voting rights in the Federal Republic of Germany.

In October 2009, Henkel thanked the then board member of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Thilo Sarrazin, for his controversial interview in the magazine Lettre International in an open letter. Henkel wrote that he supported Sarrazin's “statements without any ifs or buts” and that he “did not misrepresent himself in terms of expression”.

In November 2010, in a Focus article , Henkel suggested splitting the euro into two currencies due to the debt crisis in various European countries (first Greece, then Ireland and Spain):

• a “hard” northern euro - in addition to Germany, it should include countries such as the Benelux countries, Austria, Finland and also Ireland - here the “adherence to monetary stability and budgetary discipline” would be maintained - as well
• a "soft" southern euro under the leadership of France, congruent to the "spending pleasure and the currency-technical improvisation talent" of these countries.

The introduction of their own euro puts these countries in a position to accept inflation in order to keep their economies going or to stimulate them. In the article, Henkel criticized the German government and Chancellor Merkel :

• He calls the introduction of the euro rescue package a “night and fog”.
• Henkel accuses them of breaking treaties and agreements of previous governments as well as violating the law on a massive scale and describes this as a " coup ".

In an interview with the video blog Sons of Libertas in April 2014, Henkel advocated “free market money” and a currency competition based on Friedrich August von Hayek as a better alternative to national currencies. However, he doubted that it would be politically feasible in the near future.

criticism

In early February 2010, US economist James K. Galbraith criticized Henkel's statement that no one had foreseen the global financial crisis from 2007 onwards . Galbraith accused Henkel of narrow-mindedness and incompetence, since at least three economic schools had warned of the crisis. He also contradicted Henkel's thesis that the crisis was triggered by “do- gooders ” of American politicians. Henkel then wrote a reply in which he exemplified his thesis that failed do-gooders had led to the US real estate bubble and thus to the global financial crisis, the home ownership promotion programs under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and the ban on redlining in community reinvestment Act of 1977 led by Jimmy Carter . The latter prevents the banks from making a distinction between the residential areas of wealthier residents and slums when assessing the respective creditworthiness .

William K. Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri , then described Henkel as a “ racist banking advisor” in an open letter to the then chairman of Bank of America and demanded his dismissal. Black argues that redlining was actually banned by the 1968 Civil Rights Act . It is absurd to assume that 30 years later this law suddenly triggered a financial crisis. It is also "not every day to read nostalgic things about the good old racist times in which government agencies and business worked hand in hand to prevent the granting of loans to black people." As president of the Federation of German Industries, Henkel has also become one of the German architects of the financial crisis with his policy recommendations on deregulation . Hans-Olaf Henkel contradicted the racism allegation seven years later.

Friederike Haupt criticized Henkel's reasoning for his resignation from the AfD's federal executive committee in the FAZ because, in her opinion, the conditions he complained about had existed in the AfD from the very beginning, i.e. even before he joined, and he would therefore have known better have to.

Awards

• 1991 Awarded the Karmarsch Memorial Medal by the Leibniz Universitätsgesellschaft Hannover eV
• 1992 Honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden
• 1992 Eco-Manager of the Year for Capital magazine and WWF Germany
• 1992 Innovation Award of German Industry magazine Wirtschaftswoche
• 1995 Winner of the negative " Dinosaur of the Year " award from the German Nature Conservation Union
• 1998 “ Order of the Southern Cross ” by the President of Brazil
• 1999 " Order of the Sacred Treasure " by the Emperor of Japan
• 2000 "Commandeur" of the French Legion of Honor
• 2001 Cicero Speaker Award ("Best Economics Speaker")
• In 2002, Henkel refused to accept the Federal Cross of Merit due to Hanseatic tradition (→ Hanseatic rejection )
• 2003 Corine International Book Prize for the book The Ethics of Success
• 2003 Ludwig-Erhard-Prize for business journalism
• 2006 German SME Prize from markt intern- Verlag u. a "because of his opposition to the compulsory membership of medium-sized companies in the chambers of industry and commerce"
• 2007 Awarded the Friedrich A. von Hayek Medal
• Henkel received the New York Programming Award for its Sunday jazz broadcast on Berlin's jazz radio 101.9 .

From 2007 to 2013, the Leibniz Association awarded the " Hans Olaf Henkel Prize - Prize for Science Policy " every two years , an award for outstanding achievements in promoting science in Germany. In addition, the Bracca olafhenkeli butterfly was named after him.

Filmography

• Frank Furter, Hausener Bub: Germany from the inside - democracy in the crosshairs . Documentation, Blu-TV , Germany 2014 (with Bernd Lucke ( AfD ), Wolfgang Huebner ( Free Voters Frankfurt), Jan Timke ( Citizen in Anger ), Hans-Olaf Henkel (AfD), Claus Wolfschlag ).

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

• Now or never. An alliance for sustainability in politics. Siedler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-88680-665-0 .
• The power of freedom. Memories. Econ, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-430-15515-0 / Ullstein, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-548-75077-X / Ullstein, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-548-84007-8 .
• The ethics of success. Econ, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-430-14286-5 / Ullstein, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-430-15515-0 .
• The power of a new beginning. Germany is doable. Droemer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-426-27349-7 / Knaur, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-426-77836-4 .
• Battle for the middle. My commitment to the bourgeoisie. Droemer, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-426-27423-1 .
• The scrappers. How gamblers and politicians gamble away our future. Heyne, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-453-16829-9 .
• Save our money! Germany is being sold out - How the euro fraud threatens our prosperity. Heyne, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-18284-4 .
• The euro liars. Nonsensical rescue packages, covered up risks - this is how we are deceived . Heyne, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-453-20058-6 .

Editorships

• with Roman Herzog , Klaus von Dohnanyi , Manfred Pohl , Wolfgang Clement , Jane Uhlig: Courage to act. How Germany can reform again . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38650-8 .

Documentation

• Hans-Olaf Henkel - citizen of the world and cross-border commuter . German television documentary by Evelyn Schels , Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) 2003, 43 minutes

literature

• David Bebnowski: Hans-Olaf Henkel: mediator between the extremes of the middle . In: The alternative for Germany. Rise and social representation of a right-wing populist party . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-08285-7 , pp. 24-25.
• Norbert Beleke (Ed.): Who is who? The German Who's Who . 41st edition 2002/2003, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2002, ISBN 3-7950-2034-4 , p. 571.
• Max A. Höfer : opinion leaders, thinkers, visionaries. Who they are, what they think, how they appear . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-8218-3982-1 , p. 138 ff.
• Lutz Hagestedt (Ed.): German Literature Lexicon . The 20th century. Biographical-bibliographical manual . Volume XVI: Heinemann – Hermann . de Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-023162-5 , p. 473.

Web links

Commons : Hans-Olaf Henkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Hans-Olaf Henkel  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Hans-Olaf Henkel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Hans-Olaf Henkel  in the German Digital Library
• Search for Hans-Olaf Henkel in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Hans-Olaf Henkel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Hans-Olaf Henkel , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 04/2005 from January 29, 2005, supplemented by news from MA-Journal up to week 05/2014, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Short biography and reviews of works by Hans-Olaf Henkel at perlentaucher.de
• Entry on Hans-Olaf Henkel in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Website of Hans-Olaf Henkel
• Henkel-dry - The column by Hans-Olaf Henkel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andrea Seibel, Carl Graf Hohenthal: “Wach auf!” (Interview). In: Die Welt , September 23, 2003.
2. ^ Matthias Breitinger: Hans-Olaf Henkel: Henkel's mission: The euro must go. In: Zeit Online. January 25, 2014, accessed June 2, 2016 . 
3. ↑ GQ Star portrait: Hans-Olaf Henkel ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . GQ Magazine Online , accessed March 12, 2014. 
4. ↑ Torsten Harmsen : Bracca Olafhenkeli . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 26, 2005.
5. ↑ Recruited ex-Landesbanker . manager-magazin.de, January 29, 2007, accessed on March 12, 2014.
6. ↑ Martin Greive: Why Hans-Olaf Henkel joined the AfD . In: Die Welt , January 14, 2014.
7. ↑ Chair for International Management, University of Mannheim
8. ↑ ^{a b c d} Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Carsten Volkery: Cuba policy: Ex-BDI boss Henkel attacks Schmusekurs against Castro. In: Spiegel Online . February 15, 2005, accessed June 9, 2018 . 
10. ↑ http://www.taz.de/!69605/
11. ↑ http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Intellektuelle-uellen-Freilassung-article3169856.html
12. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Hans-Olaf Henkel: China: Ai Weiwei also fights for our freedom. In: welt.de . April 30, 2011, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
14. ↑ http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Schaeuble-hat-mich-sehr-enttaeuscht-article7164851.html
15. ↑ Christine Polzer, Anke Ziebuhr: The election campaign of the FDP for the Bundestag election 2005 ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . University of Duisburg-Essen, July 2006, p. 20 (PDF; 1.3 MB). 
16. ↑ Thomas Sebastian Vitzthum: The anti-euro campaign of the free voters . welt.de, May 30, 2012.
17. ↑ Prominent newcomer. Henkel joins Alternative für Deutschland . focus.de, January 8, 2014.
18. ↑ Henkel lends AfD one million euros Zeit-online
19. ↑ Justus Bender and Reiner Burger: AfD Deputy Chief Henkel resigns. In: FAZ.net . April 23, 2015, accessed April 23, 2015 . 
20. ↑ Justus Bender: Resignation from the AfD: “Some theses go against the grain for me” (interview). In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - FAZ , April 24, 2015.
21. ↑ Henkel leaves the AfD . FAZ, July 5, 2015, accessed on the same day
22. ↑ Joachim Jahn: Alfa boss Bernd Lucke calls for the Grexit. In: FAZ.net . September 19, 2015, accessed October 26, 2015 . 
23. ↑ West Pole -Redaktion: The intellectual arsonists of the AfD: "We created a monster". In: wdr.de . November 9, 2015, accessed November 12, 2015 . 
24. ↑ jungefreiheit.de: LKR-MEPs resign from party because of gap . In: YOUNG FREEDOM . ( jungefreiheit.de [accessed on September 29, 2018]).
25. ↑ Hans-Olaf Henkel: "The sympathetic triangle". Against the fashion of heralding the downfall of the Western model of society . NZZ Podium [The Future of Capitalism] from February 4, 2010 (PDF; 51 kB)
26. ↑ Hans-Olaf Henkel: USE = EUDSSR . In: Handelsblatt , October 3, 2011.
27. ↑ Martin Benninghoff: Strammer legal interpreter . In: Manager Magazin , June 12, 2014.
28. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Jörges : Henkel for majority voting rights ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . stern.de, February 13, 2008. 
29. ↑ Hans-Olaf Henkel: "I support Sarrazin without ifs or buts" (open letter). welt.de, September 14, 2009.
30. ↑ With “North Euro” and “South Euro” from the debt crisis . focus.de, November 27, 2010.
31. ^ Sons of Libertas & Hans Olaf Henkel . youtube.com, April 27, 2014.
32. ^ "There is No Return to Self-Sustaining Growth": An Interview with James K. Galbraith. ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. newdeal20.org , February 2, 2010 (English). 
33. ^ William K. Black: Mr. Henkel´s Hall of Shame. In: The Huffington Post , February 5, 2010.
34. ↑ Hans-Olaf Henkel: Correction on the subject of “redlining” in the USA. In: https://hansolafhenkel.de , April 24, 2018 (German).
35. ↑ Friederike Haupt: Dispute in the AfD: How Hans-Olaf Henkel passed the beam. www.faz.net, April 26, 2015
36. ↑ German SME Prize 2006 ( Memento of the original from February 22nd, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . markt intern , accessed on March 12, 2014.