Karl Gerhard Schmidt

Karl Gerhard Schmidt (born July 27, 1935 in Munich ) is a German art patron and banker . He gained fame as a long-time director of Schmidtbank , which went down in 2001.

Live and act

Youth and education

Karl Gerhard Schmidt was born on July 27, 1935 in Munich as the son of the banker Wilhelm Schmidt . He grew up in Hof an der Saale . After graduating from high school at Jean-Paul-Gymnasium , he studied business administration in Nuremberg and Munich , where - like his father - he was active in the Corps Franconia Munich there. He completed his studies with a doctorate on the subject of the situation of the north and east Bavarian border industry with a special focus on financial problems .

family

Karl Gerhard Schmidt is the father of Karl Matthäus Schmidt , the CEO of Quirin Bank and brother of the retired constitutional lawyer Reiner Schmidt .

Activity as a banker

For 39 years, Karl Gerhard Schmidt led Schmidtbank , which has been in the family for five generations . After a phase of successful growth, the bank ran into financial difficulties at the end of 2001 and was taken over by a rescue company of various German banks and finally wound up by 2005. The public prosecutor in Hof (Saale) brought charges against Schmidt in 2007 after around three years of investigation, accusing him of fraud in 232 cases and breach of trust amounting to 31.5 million euros. The district court court sentenced Karl Gerhard Schmidt on 22 August 2007 on a prison sentence of one year on probation . After ten months of negotiations, the court found it to be proven that Schmidt was guilty of infidelity at the expense of SchmidtBank. The court acquitted the former owner of SchmidtBank from the charge of fraud.

As a banker, he made an outstanding contribution to promoting the structurally weak areas in northeast Bavaria , and later also in eastern Thuringia and western Saxony .

Act as a patron of the arts

The patron of the arts Karl Gerhard Schmidt is the owner of the Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg and 1st chairman of the Institute for Modern Art Nürnberg eV He was also temporarily chairman of the “Society of Friends of Bayreuth e. V. ”In 2001 he founded the“ Friends of Bayreuth ”foundation, an influential association of patrons of the Bayreuth Festival . He is also a founding member of the German Academy for Culinary Studies . Schmidt is also an honorary senator of the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg .

Succession plan for Wolfgang Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival

Before choosing a new artistic director for the Bayreuth Festival after the 57-year-old directorship of Wolfgang Wagner on September 1, 2008, Schmidt caused disinformation to the German dispatch service . Accordingly, on Friday, August 29, 2008, the Board of Trustees would only have “a letter with one and a half pages” from Nike Wagner and Gerard Mortier . In fact, Wagner and Mortier presented their concept on seven pages and this was already delivered on Thursday. This alleged negligence on the part of the applicants was often taken up by the media as a subsequent reason for their rejection.

Works

• The situation of the north and east Bavarian border industry with special consideration of the financial problems. University of Munich , Faculty of Political Science, dissertation from October 9, 1958, 239 p. With ill.
• Art from Saxony. Collection of the SchmidtBank Chemnitz. Edited by Karl Gerhard Schmidt, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 1999, 300 pages, ISBN 393309609X .
• 25 years business research center for questions of the medium-sized economy e. V. (BF / M). In: Jörg Schlüchtermann (Ed.), Focus on SMEs. German Univ.-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 429-434, ISBN 3-8244-8019-0 .

Web links

• “The King of Court” , Die Zeit , May 13, 2004, No. 21
• Institute for Modern Art
• Modern art publisher

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stephan Maurer, dpa, August 27, 2007: Final stroke after six years: Judgment against Schmidt
2. ^ Manager magazine
3. ↑ Wagner successor. “A project of national importance” , FAZ , November 5, 2007.
4. ^ Society of Friends of Bayreuth e. V. ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2007 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. 
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) 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. 
6. ^ "Bayreuth friends favor the Wagner sisters" , Die Welt , August 30, 2008.
7. ↑ "Bayreuth Endgame" , FAZ, August 29, 2008
8. ↑ For example:
   1. “Re-sort the store” , Kölnische Rundschau , September 1, 2008; "The fact that the supposedly mature concept with the expansion of the art zone to a short letter, hardly speaks for the alleged intellectual potency of the duo." ;
   2. “The traditional duo” ( memento of September 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau , September 1, 2008; "Then, shortly before the gate closed, the extremely annoying application from the cousin or niece came. [...] Until recently, the quality of this application was controversial. It is limited to a one and a half page and quite informal letter ” ;
   3. “The world looks to Bayreuth” ( memento of the original from February 5, 2009 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. , Rheinische Post , September 1, 2008; "He [Schmidt] also let it be known that he didn't think much of the application by the Nike Wagner / Mortier duo: They hadn't submitted a concept, but a" letter with one and a half pages "."