Helmut Schlesinger: Wegbereiter und Garant der deutschen Geld- und Stabilitätspolitik wird 100

Research Area: Monetary Policy
Researcher: Reimund Mink
Date: 1.9.2024
Abstract:

September 4, 2024, is the 100th birthday of Professor Dr. Helmut Schlesinger. He was President of the Deutsche Bundesbank from 1991 to 1993 and held various positions at the bank before that, including long-serving Vice President (from 1980 to 1991) and Head of the Economics and Statistics Department. The forthcoming anniversary is an occasion to describe and pay tribute to his life's work. For former employees, Helmut Schlesinger was a great role model and source of motivation in many respects. They were particularly impressed by four areas of his work: his ability to understand, communicate and organize economic thinking as a synthesis of analysis and statistics, his contribution to creating and maintaining a culture of stability in central positions, his regulatory credo on price stability and central bank independence, and his clear ideas on the conditions for a successful European Economic and Monetary Union.

This article addresses these four main areas of his work. Schlesinger played a pivotal role in the creation of the German-German monetary union in 1990 and in the long process of establishing the Eurosystem and the European Central Bank. Helmut Schlesinger was highly respected by the German population and internationally. He was often referred to as the "soul of the Bundesbank."

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