Horst Köhler
Horst Köhler (German: [ˈhɔʁst ˈkøːlɐ] ; born 22 February 1943) is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU (of which he is a member) and the CSU, as well as the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Convention on 23 May 2004 and was subsequently inaugurated on 1 July 2004. He was reelected to a second term on 23 May 2009. Just a year later, on 31 May 2010, he resigned from his office in a controversy over a comment on the role of the German Bundeswehr in light of a visit to the troops in Afghanistan. During his tenure as president, whose office is mostly concerned with ceremonial matters, Köhler was a highly popular politician, with approval rates above those of both Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and later Chancellor Angela Merkel.[1]
This article is about the politician. For other people, see Köhler. For the German Olympic equestrian, see Horst Köhler (equestrian).
Horst Köhler
Jens Böhrnsen (acting)
Helmut Geiger
Dietrich H. Hoppenstedt
Hans Tietmeyer (1989)
Gert Haller
22 February 1943
Heidenstein, General Government, Nazi Germany (now Skierbieszów, Poland)
Christian Democratic Union (1981–)
Ulrike
Jochen
Eduard Köhler
Elisabeth Bernhard
- Politician
- Civil Servant
- Banker
Köhler is an economist by profession. Prior to his election as president, Köhler had a distinguished career in politics and the civil service and as a banking executive. He was president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1998 to 2000 and head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2000 to 2004. From 2012 to 2013, Köhler served on the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.[2]
Early life[edit]
Köhler was born in Skierbieszów (then named Heidenstein), in the General Government area of German-occupied Poland, as the seventh child of Elisabeth and Eduard Köhler, into a family of Bessarabian Germans from Rîșcani in Romanian Bessarabia (near Bălți, present-day Moldova). Horst Köhler's parents, ethnic Germans and Romanian citizens, had to leave their home in Bessarabia in 1940 during the Nazi-Soviet population transfers that followed the invasion of Poland and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which awarded Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. As part of the Generalplan Ost, they were resettled in 1942 at Skierbieszów, a village near Zamość, Poland (then part of the General Government). As the Wehrmacht was pushed back and the first parts of Poland had to be abandoned in 1944, the Köhler family fled to Leipzig. In 1953, they left the Soviet Zone – via West Berlin – to escape from the communist regime. The family lived in refugee camps until 1957, when they settled in Ludwigsburg. Horst Köhler hence spent most of his first 14 years as a refugee.
Studies and military service[edit]
A teacher recommended that the refugee boy Köhler should apply for the Gymnasium, and Köhler took his Abitur in 1963. After two years of military service at a Panzergrenadier battalion in Ellwangen, he left the Bundeswehr as Leutnant der Reserve (Reserve Lieutenant). He studied and finally gained a doctorate in economics and political sciences from the University of Tübingen, where he was a scientific research assistant at the Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung from 1969 to 1976.
Career in the civil service[edit]
Köhler joined the civil service in 1976, when he was employed in the Federal Ministry of Economics. In 1981, he was employed in the Chancellory of the state government in Schleswig-Holstein under Prime Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg. The following year, Köhler was made head of the Ministers office in the Federal Ministry of Finance, upon Stoltenberg's recommendation. He rose to Director General for financial policy and federal industrial interests in 1987. In 1989 he became Director General for currency and credit.
Secretary of State in the Ministry of Finance[edit]
A member of the CDU since 1981, he was Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Finance from 1990 to 1993, and as such, the administrative head of the Ministry and the deputy of the Federal Minister of Finance (Theodor Waigel). In that capacity, he served as a "sherpa" (personal representative) for Chancellor Helmut Kohl, preparing G7 summits and other international economic conferences. As secretary of state, Köhler negotiated both the German-German monetary union[3] and the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from the GDR in 1994.[4] Besides, he was chief negotiator for the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary Union, which led to the creation of the euro as the Union's single currency.
Köhler also played a central role in organizing the enormously expensive privatization of state businesses in Eastern Germany. He organized the Treuhand, the agency charged with selling 11,000 rusting and moribund companies.[5]
Career in banking 1993–2000[edit]
Between 1993 and 1998 he served as President of the association of savings banks in Germany, Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband.
In 1998 Köhler was appointed president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and settled in London, where the headquarters of the bank is located. At the EBRD, he took over in September 1998, when the bank was facing annual losses of $305 million, largely due to the financial collapse of Russia. He took stock of the situation, then began to refocus the EBRD's notoriously lax investment policies and tighten up on opulence at the bank itself.[6] At the same time, he was widely reputed to clash with his American vice president, Charles Frank, and other EBRD officials reportedly complained about his temper and management style.[7]
Since leaving office, Köhler continues to voice his opinion on selected foreign and domestic policy matters, most notably on Europe-Africa relations, the global fight against poverty and climate change as well as on the need for a new spirit of global partnership.[38]
Between 2010 and 2011, Köhler served as member of the Palais Royal Initiative, a group convened by Michel Camdessus, Alexandre Lamfalussy and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa to reform the international monetary system.[39]
From 2012 to 2013, Köhler served on the United Nations' High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which was co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom.[40] The advisory board was established by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to shape the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals. The Panel produced a final report with recommendations and thereby contributed in the making of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all UN member states in September 2015.[41]
Within Germany, Köhler is widely regarded as one of the country's most experienced experts on Africa, although he himself has publicly rejected this label, saying in his speech "On the impossibility of speaking of Africa": "The more I learned about Africa, the more I realized how much there still was to learn".[42]
On several occasions, Köhler has officially represented Germany as former president. Köhler took part in Namibia's 25th Independence Day festivities and represented Germany at President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's inauguration ceremony in Mali the same year.[43] Since 2016, Köhler co-chairs, together with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a Special Panel of the African Development Bank (AfDB).[44]
In 2017, Köhler was appointed by António Guterres as his new special envoy for Western Sahara, in charge of restarting talks between Morocco and the Polisario independence movement over the disputed territory.[45] In that capacity, Köhler invited the foreign ministers of Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania as well as the secretary general of the Polisario Front in late 2018 for a meeting in Geneva to broker a settlement over the territory;[46] this marked the first time in six years that the involved parties met for negotiations. In 2019, he left his post on health grounds.[47]
Köhler is also working for numerous charities and non-profit organizations, and continues to hold an honorary professorship at the University of Tübingen, his alma mater.[48] Since his retirement from German and European politics, he has held a variety of positions, including:
Personal life[edit]
Köhler is married to Eva Köhler, a teacher. They have two children, a daughter Ulrike (born in 1972) and a son Jochen (born in 1977), as well as four grandchildren.[64] Köhler is a member of the Protestant Church in Germany. A passionate swimmer, runner and cross-country skier, Köhler chooses to spend much of this time in nature.[65] Together with his wife, Köhler currently lives in Berlin and Chiemgau.
