Hans Tietmeyer

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Hans Tietmeyer (right) with Helmut Schlesinger , 1991
500 DM note with the signatures of Schlesinger and Tietmeyer

Hans Tietmeyer (born August 18, 1931 in Metelen , † December 27, 2016 in Königstein im Taunus ) was a German economist . From 1982 to 1989 he was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance and at the same time acted as the sherpa of Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the world economic summits . During the negotiations on German reunification in 1990, he was the head of negotiations for the West German delegation for the German-German currency union. In 1993 he became President of the Deutsche Bundesbank and held this position until he retired in 1999. Tietmeyer was a member of the supervisory board of Hypo Real Estate until the financial crisis hit .

Life

After graduating from high school Paulinum in Münster, Tietmeyer studied from 1952 first Catholic theology and from 1953 economics and social sciences at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster , in Bonn and in Cologne . After graduating in economics in 1958, he received his doctorate from the University of Cologne in 1961.

From 1959 to 1962 he worked as managing director in the episcopal Cusanuswerk . In 1962 he moved to the Federal Ministry of Economics as an assistant for fundamental questions of economic policy , in 1966 he was promoted to head of the department for fundamental questions of economic policy and from 1973 became head of department 1 - economic policy. From 1982 to 1989 he was a permanent state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance .

On September 20, 1988, an attack on him and his driver, who was assigned to the Red Army faction on the basis of a letter of confession, failed . Tietmeyer was lucky that a submachine gun got jammed and his unarmored company car was only hit with shotgun ammunition.

During the negotiations on the reunification of Germany, he acted as negotiator and advisor to Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl on economic issues. From 1990 Tietmeyer was a member of the board of directors of the Deutsche Bundesbank . In 1993 he succeeded Helmut Schlesinger as President of the Bundesbank and held this position until 1999, when he was succeeded by Ernst Welteke . Tietmeyer is a typical exponent of the monetarist and, by international comparison, quite restrictive monetary policy strategy of the Bundesbank. The decisions made under his aegis for very sharp rate hikes after reunification are controversial in economics and some economists blame it for the rapid breakdown of the reunification boom and the very sharp course of the subsequent crisis. In an open letter, Helmut Schmidt expressed strong criticism of Tietmeyer's monetary policy, who in his view wanted to prevent European monetary union . On the occasion of the 60th birthday of the Deutsche Mark in June 2008, however , Tietmeyer described the euro as a great success. Tietmeyer learned later by telephone from Helmut Kohl that he had decided - at the insistence of his French counterpart Mitterrand  - to give up the D-Mark as the 'price' for reunification and to introduce the euro.

Until July 2012 (successor: Wolfgang Clement ) he was chairman of the board of trustees of the New Social Market Economy Initiative for almost twelve years . From 2000 to 2009 he was President of the EBS University for Economics and Law in Oestrich-Winkel . A mandate in the Supervisory Board took Tietmeyer u. a. since 2000 with BDO Deutsche Warentreuhand  AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, since 2001 with the private bank Hauck & Aufhäuser , since 2002 with the Irish DePfa Bank plc and after its takeover by the Hypo Real Estate Group in 2008 with the parent company. At the end of March 2004 he took over the chairmanship of the Supervisory Board and Shareholders' Committee at Hauck & Aufhäuser. Tietmeyer was a member of the DWS Investment GmbH Supervisory Board until April 2, 2008 .

In September 2006 the British Times reported that Tietmeyer was being discussed for the post of head of the Vatican Bank .

On October 15, 2008, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced during her speech in the Bundestag on the “ Financial Market Stabilization Act (FMStG)” that she had asked Hans Tietmeyer to chair a group of experts which should develop proposals for new rules on the financial markets. This was rejected by the opposition parties, but also by the CDU's coalition partner, the SPD, as Tietmeyer, who was at the time a member of the supervisory board of Hypo Real Estate, was partly to blame for the bank's severe crisis. A little later, Tietmeyer announced that he was not available for this office due to the public discussion about himself. In November Tietmeyer resigned from the Supervisory Board of Hypo Real Estate.

Tietmeyer was a member of the scientific advisory board of the Pontifical Foundation Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (CAPP) and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences . He was also a member of the jury that appoints the winners of the Westphalian Peace Prize every two years . He was a member of the University Council of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt . He was also co-chairman of the Friedrich-August-von-Hayek-Foundation , as well as an honorary member of the Catholic Student Association K.St.V. Arminia Bonn in KV .

competitive sport

Tietmeyer was active as a table tennis player. With the club TTV Metelen he rose in 1950 to the highest German league league. In 1954 he moved to the DJK Cologne. In 1956 he was with the team of the University of Cologne German university champion, in the individual he lost in the final against Hans-Karl Emmerich. His brother Klemens was one of the strongest table tennis athletes in Germany in the 1950s.

Awards (excerpt)

Web links

Sources and Notes

  1. ^ Hans Tietmeyer obituary notice , FAZ , January 2, 2017
  2. ^ Joachim Algermissen: Abstract of the dissertation project: Hans Tietmeyer. A German biography under the sign of European financial and currency policy. University of Hildesheim, accessed February 20, 2017 .
  3. ^ Attack in Bonn. In: Die Zeit , September 23, 1988, No. 39.
  4. ^ Declaration by the RAF of September 20 and 21, 1988
  5. ↑ [1] Who was that? in Der Tagesspiegel of May 6, 2007, accessed on October 13, 2018
  6. ^ Open letter from Helmut Schmidt to Hans Tietmeyer dated November 8, 1996: The Bundesbank - no state within the state
  7. ↑ Hans Tietmeyer - The last guardian of the D-Mark likes the euro interview with Hans Tietmeyer in Welt Online from June 20, 2008.
  8. ↑ spiegel.de March 2, 1998: Path without return. - Behind the facade of their Franco-German friendship, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand fought bitterly for unity and the euro, as new documents from the Chancellery now show. Was the abandonment of the Deutschmark the price for reunification?
  9. ↑ http://www.insm.de/insm/Presse/Pressemmeldung/Wolfgang-Clement-neuer-Kuratoriumsvorsitzender-der-INSM.html
  10. ↑ hyporealestate.com: CV Hans Tietmeyer ( Memento from October 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Richard Owen, "Pope looks to appoint new Vatican Bank head" In The Times , September 11, 2006 (last accessed October 29, 2006).
  12. ^ German Bundestag / Stenographic report / 182nd meeting / 15. October 2008, p. 19351
  13. ↑ faz.net: "Made the buck to the gardener". - Angela Merkel's personnel recommendation has rarely had to be withdrawn so quickly - and that in front of everyone in the Bundestag. The former Bundesbank President was supposed to advise the Chancellor on financial issues. This personality was apparently neither agreed with the coalition partner nor with the opposition.
  14. ↑ Tietmeyer cancels Merkel - Focus October 15, 2008.
  15. ↑ spiegel.de: [2] In addition to Tietmeyer, seven other members of the Hypo Real Estate supervisory board announced their resignation, including Klaus Pohle , who had temporarily headed the supervisory body in the past few weeks. Only the three members of the supervisory board associated with the major shareholder J. C. Flowers remained in office.
  16. ↑ The University Council of the KUE: names, facts, statements ( Memento from February 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on February 23, 2016)
  17. ↑ DTS magazine , 1954/16 page 6
  18. ↑ Manfred Schillings: Hans Tietmeyer - A master of his subject , DTS magazine , 1993/11 page 33
  19. ↑ DTS magazine , 1996/3 page 30
  20. ↑ European Craft Prize. North Rhine-Westphalian Crafts Day V., accessed on March 10, 2015 .
  21. ↑ Award of the Hessian Order of Merit on September 3, 2001 . In: The Hessian Prime Minister (Ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 2001 No. 38 , p. 3370 , point 822 ( online at the information system of the Hessian state parliament [PDF; 5.4 MB ]).
personal data
SURNAME Tietmeyer, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German State Secretary and President of the Bundesbank
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Metelen , Westphalia
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 2016
Place of death Königstein im Taunus