Josef Joham

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Josef Joham (born February 21, 1889 in Bad Kleinkirchheim , Carinthia , † April 7, 1959 in Vienna ) was a powerful, sometimes controversial banking specialist and long-time director of the then largest Austrian bank, Creditanstalt-Bankverein .

Life

Joham, a farmer's son, graduated from high school in Klagenfurt, where he became a member of the Catholic student union Karantania. Then studied law in Innsbruck and Graz (doctorate in 1913). The CV member ( K.Ö.HV Carolina Graz ) worked in various banks in the Alpine region from 1914. From 1921 he held more important functions in the bank for Tyrol and Vorarlberg . During the Great Depression, the insolvency of Creditanstalt (CA) in May 1931 triggered the German banking crisis . Joham became a board member of CA in 1931; the CA was de facto nationalized. In 1936 Joham was appointed General Director of the CA by the authoritarian regime of the Austrian corporate state . During the war Joham remained on the board of the CA - presumably also because of his good personal relationship with Hermann Josef Abs . (The Deutsche Bank , which headed Abs, had taken over the CA after the connection ). During the war, Joham also performed high economic functions in East Central Europe. From 1942 Joham worked for the US secret service OSS , the predecessor of the CIA , and provided them with high-level information about the economy in the National Socialist German Reich through Kurt Grimm, who lived in Switzerland .

After 1945 Joham was appointed public administrator and again in 1948 general director of the CA. In the early 1950s, Joham got caught in an economic scandal related to the shifting of funds from the Marshall Plan , which was also the subject of a parliamentary committee of inquiry . Joham was ultimately held by the ÖVP and remained general director until his death. He was buried at the Neustift cemetery .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Catholic color students in Carinthia", p. 46
  2. ↑ Stink in the Creditanstalt . Time Magazine August 18, 1952 ( online )
  3. ↑ Karl Ausch : The Johamiterlegende and the truth . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 17, 1952, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ^ Josef Johann grave site , Vienna, Neustifter Friedhof, Group A, Row 19, No. 3.

literature

  • Isabella Ackerl , Friedrich Weißensteiner: Austrian Personal Lexicon of the First and Second Republic , Ueberreuter, Vienna 1992 ISBN 3-8000-3464-6
  • Gerald Feldman , Oliver Rathkolb , Theodor Venus, Ulrike Zimmerl, Austria's banks and savings banks during National Socialism and in the post-war period , CH Beck, Munich 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Joham, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian banking specialist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kleinkirchheim , Carinthia
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1959
Place of death Vienna