Peter Hartz

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Peter Hartz, 2005

Peter Hartz (born August 9, 1941 in St. Ingbert ) is a former German manager . Until July 2005 he was Chief Human Resources Officer and a member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG . The labor market reforms of the early 2000s known as the Hartz Concept were named after him.

Life, Memberships, and Awards

Peter Hartz grew up as the youngest of three sons of an ironworker in Niederwürzbach in Saarland . Peter Hartz still lives in Saarland today, is married and has a son. On March 24, 2016, he married the 61-year-old pedagogue Gundula from Berlin as a second marriage. His first wife Marlene, whom he married in 1964, died in 2011. His brother Kurt Hartz (1935–2014) was from 1980 to 1999 a member of the Saarland state parliament for the SPD. His second brother Rudi Hartz was a medium-sized entrepreneur and from 1983 to 1999 manager at the handball club TV Niederwürzbach .

Peter Hartz is a member of the SPD and IG Metall . He is also a founder and member of the board of trustees of the "SHS Foundation", a foundation with the aim of making Saarland internationally known as an economic, scientific, research and cultural region.

1994 Hartz was commissioned by the University of Trier , the honorary doctorate .

In 2002 Peter Hartz was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class. He voluntarily returned this after his final conviction for infidelity at the end of August 2007 and declared his waiver, thus preventing a possible withdrawal procedure.

In 2004 he was awarded the title of Professor hc by the Saarland Prime Minister Peter Müller .

Career

After his secondary school leaving certificate in 1955, he trained as an industrial clerk at Th. Jansen-Armaturen GmbH in St. Ingbert . After his military service (today he is Hauptmann dR) and his second educational path , a three-year study of business administration at the Saarland University of Applied Sciences (later HTW) in Saarbrücken followed in 1965 . He graduated with a degree in business administration (FH).

Hartz led several Saarland and international companies. He was head of personnel at Dillinger Hütte . At the same time, he initiated charitable projects and thus secured jobs for employees and ensured a socially acceptable downsizing in the steel industry. Alongside Hajo Hoffmann, he is the initiator of the Saarland “Steel Foundation”.

From 1993 Hartz was Chief Human Resources Officer at Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg . Here he worked on projects such as the four-day week or 5000 × 5000 . The 5000 × 5000 project meant that Volkswagen hired 5000 new employees who, however, were not paid according to the applicable company collective agreement, but instead earned a gross of DM 5000 per month.

At the beginning of 2002, Peter Hartz was commissioned by the federal government , as head of a commission named after him, to develop a concept and plans for the "Hartz reforms" or the Hartz concept , which were later named after him, and which became an essential part of Agenda 2010 .

In 2003, the VW Supervisory Board entrusted Peter Hartz with the coordinating responsibility for South America and South Africa .

Since March 2010 he has been the head of the “Minipreneure” project that he initiated.

Development of the Hartz concept

Hartz became better known at the beginning of 2002 when, against the background of the placement scandal, he was commissioned by the federal government to develop a reform concept for the labor market-related social laws and for what was then the Federal Employment Agency . Hartz headed a commission named after him that developed the Hartz concept and thus prepared extensive social law changes that came into effect in the following years. Hartz later distanced himself from parts of the reform.

The Society for German Language chose the expression "Hartz IV" as word of the year 2004.

Misappropriation of corporate funds

Peter Hartz is considered a friend of the former Škoda manager Helmuth Schuster , who has been investigated since July 2005 for embezzlement and fraud in the context of the VW corruption affair. Hartz offered his resignation on July 8, 2005 after speculation in the press about his possible complicity. On July 13, 2005, the four-member presidium of the VW supervisory board unanimously recommended accepting Peter Hartz's offer to resign as HR director. However, Hartz was not granted any severance pay. Since he left the VW Board of Management , he has received an age-related pension . At that time, the presidium included the chairman of the supervisory board Ferdinand Piëch , the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Christian Wulff , the chairman of the metal industry union Jürgen Peters and the chairman of the general works council of Volkswagen AG Bernd Osterloh .

On October 7, 2005, the Braunschweig public prosecutor stated that it would initiate an investigation against Hartz on suspicion of infidelity . On November 15, 2006, criminal proceedings were opened against Peter Hartz in Braunschweig for breach of trust as a VW board member in 44 cases.

On October 9, 2006, Peter Hartz is said to have admitted to the Braunschweig Chief Public Prosecutor Hildegard Wolff that he had “favored” the former works council chairman, Klaus Volkert , for a decade . Allegedly without the knowledge of the then CEO Ferdinand Piëch and other top managers of the VW Group, Hartz paid Volkert a "special bonus" of 200,000 euros every year between 1995 and 2005 - a total of two million euros (point 1 of the indictment). Part of the system of perks was that Hartz provided Volkert's Brazilian lover, Adriana Barros, with an additional income. For a long time she received 7,600 euros per month - a total of 399,000 euros. (Items 2-20 of the indictment)

Points 21 to 44 of the indictment concerned abuse of expenses , prostitutes and pleasure trips . Hartz gave his personnel manager Klaus-Joachim Gebauer commissioned works Volkert "treat generous and appreciative, and not to be petty." "In fact, the statements allegedly contained official cause lasster costs, among other expenses for the services of prostitutes, the purchase of tailored suits and Jewelry , the renting and renovation of a privately used apartment in Braunschweig ”. The investigators did not mention that Hartz himself had prostitutes paid by VW. "Such embarrassing details were set as part of a deal between Hartz, who confessed in principle, with the public prosecutor because of their low severity."

On January 17, 2007, Hartz admitted all 44 counts in the court hearing, which was scheduled for two days. The total damage from this affair amounts to 2.6 million euros, of which Hartz paid almost two million euros to the then head of the works council, Klaus Volkert. The Regional Court of Braunschweig followed the requests of the public prosecutor's office and defense lawyer and on January 25, 2007, imposed a two-year prison sentence, which was suspended on probation, and a fine of 360 daily rates of € 1,600 (a total of 576,000 €). As part of the sentencing , the full confession was considered mitigating the penalty. A number of witnesses were not questioned because of the full confession.

The rapid end of the process was criticized in newspaper comments. According to the Sächsische Zeitung of January 18, 2007, it is "instinctual to make 'judgments' already at the beginning of the process". The very word shows that there is a lack of feeling for the social significance of this process.

Die Zeit commented on the judgment as unfair, since Hartz as a perpetrator was punished more mildly than Volkert, the helper, and self-interest as a motive of Hartz was not taken into account: “He makes a confession, the court spares him the embarrassing appearance of whores. Hartz says what he knows about the two million euros special bonus payments to Volkert, and the court forgets the few thousand euros that were paid from the company's coffers for Peter Hartz's girls. "

As an author

literature

  • Power and powerlessness: a conversation with Inge Klöpfer. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-455-50028-8 .

Movies

  • Looking for Peter Hartz. Documentation, Germany 2011 (by Lutz Hachmeister , produced by ECO Media TV in cooperation with HMR Produktion on behalf of SWR , WDR and 3sat )

Web links

Commons : Peter Hartz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Peter Hartz  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tanja May, Peter Hartz and his secret wedding, in Bunte 42/2016, page 34
  2. ↑ Federal Cross of Merit - Peter Hartz returns the Federal Cross of Merit. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  3. ^ Marie-Luise Hauch: A way out for crisis industries? In: zeit.de. April 10, 1987, Retrieved July 5, 2015 .
  4. ↑ fazfinance.net report from June 30, 2003  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 23, 2010)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.fazfinance.net  
  5. ↑ Tobias Dorfer: Project Minipreneurs - Peter Hartz is back - but how? In: sueddeutsche.de. May 19, 2010, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Peter Hartz: “Macht und Ohnmacht” , in conversation with Inge Kloepfer , 2007, Hoffmann and Campe, p. 224
  7. ^ "One year, one (non-) word" , Spiegel Online
  8. ^ Arne Daniels and Johannes Röhrig: The indictment against Peter Hartz. In: stern.de. January 17, 2007, accessed July 5, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Stefan Willeke: Hard, and unfair at that. In: zeit.de. February 28, 2008, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  10. ↑ HMR production: In search of Peter Hartz
personal data
SURNAME Hartz, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Ingbert