Historical Dictionary of Contemporary Germany by Lewis Derek;Zitzlsperger Ulrike;

Author:Lewis, Derek;Zitzlsperger, Ulrike;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

LAMBSDORFF, OTTO GRAF (1926–2009)

Free Democratic Party (FDP) politician. Born in Aachen, Otto Graf Lambsdorff was severely injured as a soldier in World War II (from 1944) and became a prisoner of war. After the war, he studied law and politics at the universities of Bonn and Cologne (1947–1950), earning a doctorate in law (1952). He worked in banking and insurance (1955–1977) and joined the executive board of the Victoria Versicherung insurance group (1972). In 1951, Lambsdorff joined the FDP, which he later represented in the Bundestag (1972–1998) and for whose parliamentary group he was spokesman (1977–1984). From 1977 until 1982, he served as economics minister under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the government coalition between the FDP and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Policy differences between the FDP and SPD, however, came to a head over Lambsdorff’s widely publicized paper of September 1982, in which he argued for concessions to businesses and cuts in social welfare to stimulate economic growth. The eventual outcome was a coalition between the FDP and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in whose cabinet Lambsdorff continued as economics minister.

In 1984, Lambsdorff resigned as minister after being implicated in a scandal in which the Flick group received tax concessions in return for party donations. After the affair had blown over, Lambsdorff became chairman (1988–1993), then honorary chairman (1993–), of the FDP, returning to the public eye as negotiator on behalf of the German government of a $5,000 million settlement for former victims of the National Socialists’ forced labor program during World War II (1999–2002).

A strong advocate of business-friendly government, Lambsdorff sat on the supervisory boards of a number of German and foreign companies and chaired the board of the Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung (Friedrich Naumann Foundation), which has close links with the FDP (1995–2006). He also chaired Liberal International (1991–1994) and the European region of the Trilateral Commission, a forum of political and business leaders from Europe, North America, and Japan (1991–2001).

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