Walter Hesselbach

Walter Hesselbach (born January 20, 1915 in Frankfurt am Main ; † November 5, 1993 in Walenstadt , Canton St. Gallen , Switzerland ) was a German bank manager , trade unionist and local politician .

Life

Walter Hesselbach became a member of the SPD in 1932 and graduated from high school in 1933 . He wanted to be a teacher . However, since he had temporarily belonged to the Socialist Workers' Youth, he was initially not allowed to study under the National Socialists. Therefore, he did a banking apprenticeship at the J. Dreyfus & Co. bank . From 1935 to 1937 he was an employee of the Deutsche Überseeische Bank. There he was advised to resign because he did not want to join the German Labor Front . From 1938 he was secretary to the millionaire Georg von Opel . At the same time he studied as an external business administration at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.

In 1940 he was called up for military service. From 1944 to 1947 he was a French prisoner of war. He then returned to Frankfurt am Main and was involved in the SPD, the trade unions and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , which was protecting the republic . First he worked at the Landeszentralbank Hessen and from 1948 at the Bank deutscher Länder . In 1948 he became chairman of the works council. From 1952 to 1977 he was a voluntary city council member of the City of Frankfurt am Main, besides Elli Horeni, the only voluntary city councilor to which a business area ( Hochheim winery ) was assigned. From 1952 to 1958 he was a board member of the Landeszentralbank Hessen. In 1958 he merged the six regional public economic banks of the Federal Republic of Germany to form the nationwide Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft (BfG) and took over the office of spokesman for the board. From 1961 he became chairman of the board of the BfG. In 1977 he resigned and moved to the supervisory board , of which he was a member until 1985. After that he was an honorary member of the supervisory board.

From 1977 to 1985 Hesselbach was chairman of the board of the trade union holding BGAG , from 1986 to 1994 national chairman of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold. He was several times a mediator in collective bargaining and was chairman of the German-Israeli business association as well as honorary chairman of the German-Israeli society .

In his honor, the city of Frankfurt named a street in a new building area near Friedberger Warte, which has been under construction since 2003, the name Walter-Hesselbach-Straße .

publication

Grave in the Parkfriedhof Heiligenstock in Frankfurt am Main

• The Public Service Enterprises (1970)

literature

• Hans Matthöfer : trade unionist and banker. Obituary for Walter Hesselbach, available online on the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung website, PDF file, 66 kB.
• Walter Hesselbach in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Awards (selection)

• Honorary Doctorate from San Carlos University in Cebu City , Philippines (1968)
• Honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University (1970)
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Jerusalem (1974)
• Large Federal Cross of Merit (1975) with star (1980) and shoulder ribbon (1985)
• Goethe plaque of the city of Frankfurt am Main (1980)
• Golda Meir Prize for special services to the state and economy of Israel (1980)
• Johanna Kirchner Medal of the City of Frankfurt am Main (1991)

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Hesselbach in the catalog of the German National Library