Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim

Alfred Paul Ernst Freiherr von Oppenheim ( born May 5, 1934 in Cologne, † January 5, 2005 ) was a German private banker.

Life

Oppenheim, a descendant of Salomon Oppenheim, who in 1789 founded a bank in Bonn and it moved in 1798 to Cologne, studied until 1960 at Amherst and Harvard. In 1964 he became a personally liable partner of Sal Oppenheim jr. KGaA, 1978, he took over the leadership of the Shareholders' Committee. Since 1993, he was Chairman of the Shareholders' Committee and the Supervisory Board of the Bank. His slogans were: "We are discreet, still secret as secret " and " For a few, we do everything. "

Oppenheim was also vice president of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK ), in 1987 President of the German - French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Paris and President of the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. He founded the Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation for the Promotion of Science. He interfered repeatedly in politics. In 1980 he handed the opposition leader in the Bundestag, Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU ) secret and DM 1.3 million in cash for the election campaign; this illegal donation was later known as the Intelligence Service of the GDR had the car phone of the CDU treasurer bugged .. Alfred von Oppenheim polemic in 1998 with much fanfare against the Cologne city council, because they have the Wehrmacht exhibition ( " war of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 - 1944 " ) was approved by the city: by " alleged facts " and by a pacifist social program, the Bundeswehr will be discredited .. As president of the Cologne industry and Commerce ( IHK), he called for more fixed-term contracts, less participation of councils, faster terminations as well as savings for pensioners and the unemployed ..

1997 was an Alfred von Oppenheim Chair for the study of anti-Semitism, racism and the Holocaust at the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem set up.

Since 1962 he was married to his wife Jeane. He had three children. In his last mention in the list of the richest Germans he stood with three billion euro private assets at number 25. He was in 1984 left the evangelical church because they participated in the former peace movement against the deployment of U.S. medium-range missiles. Therefore, the family rented his death for the funeral of the Cologne Cathedral Catholic ..

Honors

  • Order of Merit of North Rhine -Westphalia (14 October 2004)
  • Honorary Senator of the University of Cologne
  • Merit, First Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • Commander's Cross of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic
Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce Integrated Authority File
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