Wilhelm Hankel

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Wilhelm Hankel (born January 10, 1929 in Danzig - Langfuhr , † January 15, 2014 in Cologne ) was a German economist and bank manager . From 1959 to 1967 he was chief economist at KfW and from 1972 to 1974 President of the Hessische Landesbank . He was honorary professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and visiting professor at several US universities.

Life

Hankel was born in 1929 as the son of the businessman Oskar Hankel and his wife Jenny, b. Schoffmann, born. He attended boarding schools as a schoolboy and was drafted into military service in 1944. After graduating from high school , he studied economics from 1948 to 1953 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and the University of Amsterdam ( graduate economist , 1951). In 1953 he was with the later Nobel Prize laureate Jan Tinbergen at the University of Mainz with the dissertation on the theory of economic account assignments (theory of "decision" models). With special consideration of the monetary aspects of the Dr. rer. pole. PhD .

Hankel began his career in 1952 at the Bank deutscher Länder , the forerunner of the Deutsche Bundesbank . He later moved to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Another move brought him to the Foreign Office . From 1959 to 1967 Hankel was chief economist at the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW). In 1967 he moved to the Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi) as ministerial director from Prof. Karl Schiller as head of the money and credit department and became one of his closest employees. He played a key role in the development of the Federal Treasury Bills and the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund (SDR) and reintroduced the Frankfurt am Main futures exchange. From 1972 to 1974 he was President of the Hessische Landesbank (Helaba) and at the same time received an honorary professorship for currency and development policy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main in 1971 .

In 1973, as President of Helaba, he was charged with not having informed the Board of Directors in good time about the billions in losses during his term of office. On December 17, 1973 he therefore resigned from his office. This resignation was the first high point of the Helaba scandal , which was to cost Albert Osswald his office as Hessian Prime Minister at the end of 1976 . Wilhelm Hankel was later exonerated because Helaba's loss-makers were before his term in office.

From 1974 to 1975, Hankel was a visiting professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1975 to 1976 he was a visiting professor at the Konrad Adenauer Chair at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Between 1978 and 1981 he was a visiting professor at the SAIS Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and then at the Science Center Berlin . From 1990 to 1991 Hankel was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Dresden . From 1991 to 1992 he held an endowed chair of the Deutsche Bundesbank for international monetary policy at the Free University of Berlin .

In addition, Hankel received consulting contracts from the Society for Technical Cooperation ( GTZ ) in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia from 1977 to 1979, in South Korea in 1980, in Egypt in 1981, in the Dominican Republic , Guatemala , Honduras , Costa Rica and Nicaragua in 1982, in in the People's Republic of China in 1988, in Jordan from 1989 to 1991, in Yemen in 1992, in Russia from 1994 to 1995 and in Georgia from 1998 to 1999 and as an expert for the World Bank . By 1995, Hankel had built a training center for bankers in Tyumen, West Siberia, with the support of the European Union . In 2008, Hankel advised the Syrian Central Bank in Damascus .

Hankel was a member of the SPD , lived in the Cologne-Bonn area, was married to Uta Hankel (née Wömpner) and had three children. In addition to German, he also spoke English , French and Dutch .

Hankel died on January 15, 2014 at the age of 85 in Cologne.

Positions

Hankel saw in the creation of money and credit a systemic error of the capitalist finance economy , which systematically leads to crises. Hankel saw the increase in the amount of money by increasing the number of coins and lowering their material value by King Midas (700 BC) as the first example of the crisis-prone nature of credit and money creation. In order for capitalism to be saved, money should no longer be made through money, but through work. The global and national lending business would have to be "leashed". "Money progress", the creation of ever new money products, is "credit fraud".

In 1997, Hankel and Professors Wilhelm Nölling , Joachim Starbatty and Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court against the Treaty of Amsterdam for the introduction of the euro.

In April 2010, Hankel recommended Greece, like other financially vulnerable members of the Eurozone , to return to their former own currency. On May 7, 2010 Joachim Starbatty, Wilhelm Hankel, Wilhelm Nölling, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, ranging Dieter Spethmann against the billion loan for the Greek bailout before the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe constitutional complaint one. In their opinion, the billion-euro transfer violates the EU treaties and the Basic Law . The Federal Constitutional Court rejected the constitutional complaint by judgment of September 7, 2011, but awarded the plaintiffs a reimbursement of costs amounting to one third of the necessary expenses in a decision of December 14, 2011, as they would have contributed to the clarification of a question of fundamental importance.

Wilhelm Hankel represented his views in the national-conservative Junge Freiheit , the right-wing extremist National-Zeitung and the New Solidarity, among others . Hankel justified this by saying that other media ignored him.

Wilhelm Hankel supported the position of the Free Voters to strengthen the Eurosystem through the possibility for participating countries to introduce parallel currencies and to comply with the Maastricht criteria, which do not allow other EU countries to assume debts.

He was a member of the advisory board of the Wissensmanufaktur project .

Awards

Publications

1950-59
  • On the theory of economic account assignments. With special consideration of the monetary aspects. Dissertation. University of Mainz, 1953
  • with Gerhard Zweig: Basic economic questions of social reform. Bund-Verlag, Cologne-Deutz 1956
1960-69
  • The second distribution of capital. A market economy way of long-term financing policy. Knapp, Frankfurt 1961
  • Experience with the German capital aid. Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1967
1970-79
  • Monetary policy. Stabilization of monetary value, currency integration and protection of savers. Stuttgart [and others], Kohlhammer 1971, ISBN 3-17-001047-6
  • Competition and protection of savers in the banking industry. Perspectives for a modern banking policy. Stuttgart [and others], Kohlhammer 1974, ISBN 3-17-001739-X
  • Heroes of the economy or the beautiful, intact business world. Düsseldorf / Vienna, Econ-Verlag 1975, ISBN 3-430-13933-3
  • The way out of the crisis. Düsseldorf / Vienna, Econ-Verlag 1975, ISBN 3-430-13934-1
  • World economy. From the prosperity of the nations today. Düsseldorf / Vienna, Econ-Verlag 1977, ISBN 3-430-13932-5
  • Caesar. I introduce golden times. The economic empire of the Roman Empire. Herbig, Munich / Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-7766-0889-7 .
  • Prosperity in crisis. An analysis of economic policy in the energy crisis using the example of Austria, active internal balance through passive external balance. With a foreword by Hannes Androsch . Molden, Wien [and others] 1979, ISBN 3-217-01058-2
1980-89
  • with Hermann Priebe : The agricultural sector in the development process. With examples from Africa. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 1980, ISBN 3-593-32693-0
  • with Robert Isaak: The modern inflation. A case for exorcism or moderation? Results of a workshop conference of the Bologna Center of the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University , Washington DC under the direction of Karl Deutsch . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-7663-0490-9
  • Opposite course. From the debt crisis to full employment. Berlin, Siedler 1984, ISBN 3-8868-0114-4
  • John Maynard Keynes. The decryption of capitalism. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1986
  • Careful, our money. Wirtschaftsverlag Langen-Müller / Herbig, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7844-7245-1
  • with Harald Sander: Contributions to the analysis of the debt crisis and how to combat it. Institute for Development Research and Development Policy, Bochum 1989, ISBN 3-9272-7606-5
1990-99
  • One mark for Germany. Bouvier, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-416-02259-9
  • The seven deadly sins of union. Berlin, Siedler 1993, ISBN 3-8868-0484-4
  • Dollars and ecu. Leading currencies in competition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1993, ISBN 3-596-11014-9
  • The big money theater. About DM, dollar, ruble and ecu. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-421-05003-1
  • with Wilhelm Nölling, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider & Joachim Starbatty: The Euro lawsuit. Why the monetary union has to fail. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 1998, ISBN 3-499-22395-3
  • The euro - step towards Europe and into orderly globalism? Lecture given on the occasion of the “ Schweizerzeit ” autumn conference on November 7, 1998 in Berg am Irchel. Schweizerzeit-Verlags-AG, Flaach 1999, ISBN 3-907983-32-7
2000-2009
  • with Wilhelm Nölling, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider & Joachim Starbatty: The Euro Illusion. Can Europe still be saved? Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 2001, ISBN 3-499-23085-2
  • with Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider & Angelika Emmerich-Fritsche: Revolution in health insurance. Principles, theses and law. Hansebuch-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-934880-05-3
  • with Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider & Joachim Starbatty (editor): The economist as a politician. Europe, money and the social question. Festschrift for Wilhelm Nölling. Lucius and Lucius, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8282-0267-5
    • therein The Economic Consequences of the Euro: A Gold Standard Without Gold. Where does it come from, where it leads to. Pp. 385-414
  • The EURO lie ... and other economic fairy tales. Signum, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85436-392-7
2010-2013
  • Once upon a time there was the EURO , DVD, Edeco Internet GmbH, release date: March 15, 2010
  • with W. Nölling, KA Schachtschneider, D. Spethmann, J. Starbatty: The euro adventure comes to an end - How the monetary union is destroying our livelihoods. Kopp-Verlag, Rottenburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86445-001-3
  • with Robert Isaak: Monetary rule - can our prosperity still be saved? Wiley-VCH Verlag, Weinheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-52750-594-4
  • with Bruno Bandulet , Bernd-Thomas Ramb, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider , Udo Ulfkotte : Give us our D-Mark back: Five experts answer the most important questions about the coming national bankruptcy , Kopp-Verlag, Rottenburg May 15, 2012, ISBN 978-3864450358
  • The Euro Bomb - will be defused , Universitas, April 11, 2013, ISBN 978-3800415168

literature

  • Wilhelm Nölling, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider & Joachim Starbatty (eds.): Monetary union and world economy. Festschrift for Wilhelm Hankel. Lucius & Lucius , Stuttgart, 1999, ISBN 3-8282-0098-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Echo Online : Ex-Helaba-President Hankel died at the age of 85 ( memento of February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), January 18, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? The German who's who. XLVI. Edition 2007/08 (founded by Walter Habel - formerly Degeners who is it), Lübeck 2007, p. 478.
  3. ↑ Credit fraud disguised as progress in money ( memento of October 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau , October 25, 2008
  4. ↑ BVerfG, decision of March 31, 1998, Az. 2 BvR 1877/97, full text = BVerfGE 97, 350 - EURO.
  5. ↑ This man wants to stop aid to Greece , Tages-Anzeiger , May 4, 2010
  6. ↑ BVerfG, judgment of the Second Senate of September 7, 2011, Az. 2 BvR 987/10, full text = BVerfGE 129, 124-186
  7. ↑ BVerfG, decision of the Second Senate of December 14, 2011, Az. 2 BvR 987/10, full text
  8. ↑ Prof. Hankel: "Let the bankers clean up their own crap themselves!"
  9. ↑ The Euro-Fighter Spiegel Online June 16, 2010
  10. ↑ The Return of the Antichrists Der Spiegel 26/2010.
  11. ↑ Aiwanger and Hankel are in favor of second currencies, at least in crisis countries .
  12. ↑ Wissensmanufaktur Personen 7 July 2013 ( Memento from 30 July 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Hankel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist and currency expert
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig
DATE OF DEATH 15th January 2014
Place of death Cologne