Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff, known as Otto Graf Lambsdorff (20 December 1926 – 5 December 2009), was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Early life and education

Lambsdorff was born in

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th ...

(

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...

) to Herbert Graf Lambsdorff and Eva, ''née'' Schmidt. He attended school in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and

Brandenburg an der Havel Brandenburg an der Havel () is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, which served as the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg until it was replaced by Berlin in 1417. With a population of 72,040 (as of 2020), it is located on the banks of the ...

and became an officer cadet in the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

in 1944. In April 1945 he was severely wounded in an Allied

strafing Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...

attack and lost his lower left leg. Lambsdorff was a prisoner of war until 1946. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he passed his

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen ye ...

and studied law at the Universities of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

and

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

where he obtained a PhD.

Political career

In 1951, Lambsdorff became a member of the liberal FDP, and from 1972 to 1998 he represented this party in the Federal parliament, the ''

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Comm ...

''. Within and outside his party he was known as a representative of the market liberals; a mocking name was ''der Marktgraf'' ("the market count", a play on ''Markgraf'', "

margrave Margrave was originally the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defence of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or of a kingdom. That position became hereditary in certain feudal families in the ...

").

Federal Minister for Economic Affairs

When

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ger ...

made way for

Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Ch ...

in 1977, Lambsdorff was appointed West German Federal Minister of Economics in the new government and served from 1977 until 1982. He held the same office again from 1982 until 1984 in the government of

Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...

after his party pulled out of the coalition with the Social Democratic Party to form a new Government with Kohl's Christian Democratic Union. In 1987, Lambsdorff became the first West German cabinet minister to be indicted while in officeEX-BONN AIDE GOES ON TRIAL IN PAYOFF SCANDAL
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 30 August 1985. when he was forced to resign over allegations of corruption in the so-called Flick Affair. By January 1987, however, the prosecutor asked the court to acquit Lambsdorff of all corruption charges, including charges he accepted $50,000 between 1977 and 1980 from the Flick concern in return for granting lucrative tax waivers. On 16 February 1987, he was convicted by the Bonn State Court on lesser charges, namely tax evasion on donations to political parties. During the 18-month trial, he won re-election to Parliament and served as his parliamentary group's spokesman on economic matters.

Chairman of the Free Democrats

Lambsdorff served as chairman of the FDP from 1988 until 1993.Obituary in ''Die Welt''
In 1991, during the Persian Gulf war, Lambsdorff joined American officials in voicing anger at the German government, accusing it of moving slowly to prevent some German companies from supplying Iraq with arms and poison gas plants. Following

Hans-Dietrich Genscher Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...

’s resignation, Lambsdorff and Chancellor

named

Irmgard Schwaetzer Irmgard Schwaetzer (born 5 April 1942) is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and a Protestant church official. Since 2013, she has been chairing the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). She is the central foun ...

, a former aide to Genscher, to be the new Foreign Minister. In a surprise decision, however, a majority of the FDP parliamentary group rejected her nomination and voted instead to name Justice Minister

Klaus Kinkel Klaus Kinkel (17 December 1936 – 4 March 2019)
After resigning from active politics, Lambsdorff remained an advocate of free markets, becoming an active figure in the DSW shareholder action group, and regularly warned about the dangers of growing bureaucracy and tax burdens. From 1993 until 2008, he served on the supervisory board of

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding ...

. In 1999 Lambsdorff was appointed as the federal envoy to the negotiations for the compensation of the victims of

forced labor in Germany during World War II The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany (german: Zwangsarbeit) and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered t ...

by Chancellor

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

, which led to the establishment of the

Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (German: Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft; acronym EVZ), is a German Federal organisation with the purpose of making financial compensation available "to former forced laborers and ...

. He also served as a member of the scientific advisory board of the

Centre Against Expulsions The Centre Against Expulsions (german: Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen, ZgV) was a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Since March 19, 2008 the name of the ...

and a jury member of the

Franz Werfel Human Rights Award The Franz Werfel Human Rights Award (german: Franz-Werfel-Menschenrechtspreis) is a human rights award of the German Federation of Expellees' Centre Against Expulsions project. It is awarded to individuals or groups in Europe who, through polit ...

. Lambsdorff was honorary president of the

Liberal International Liberal International (LI) is a worldwide organization of liberal political parties - a political international. It was founded in Oxford in 1947 and has become the pre-eminent network for liberal parties, aiming to strengthen liberalism aroun ...

. In this capacity, he personally delivered the

World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award The Golden Pen of Freedom Award is an annual international journalism award established in 1961, given by the World Association of Newspapers to individuals or organisations. The stated purpose of the award is "to recognise the outstanding action, i ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

n human rights activist

Gitobu Imanyara Gitobu Imanyara (born c. 1954) is a Kenyan human rights lawyer, journalist, and politician. Biography After Imanyara spent more than two years in Maximum Security Prison on charges associated with his work as a human rights lawyer, he founded the ...

in 1992, who was banned by his country's authorities from leaving the country.Gitobu Imanyara (1991)

Political positions

The pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) had been in coalition with the

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

SPD, but changed direction in the early 1980s. Lambsdorff led the FDP to adopt the market-oriented "Kiel Theses" in 1977; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs. Lambsdorff argued that the result would be economic growth, which would itself solve both the social problems and the financial problems. As a consequence switched allegiance to the CDU, and Schmidt lost his parliamentary majority in 1982. For the only time in West Germany's history, the government fell on a vote of no confidence.

Family

The Lambsdorff family is of old

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

n aristocratic descent, but settled for centuries in the

Baltic countries The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Euro ...

and was hence closely connected to Tsarist and Imperial Russia (see

Baltic Germans Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly decline ...

). Lambsdorff's father served as a tsarist cadet in St. Petersburg and the former Russian foreign minister Vladimir Lambsdorff is one of his relatives.Zeit, "Ritter der liberalen Sache"
Between 2004 and 2017, his nephew

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff Alexander Sebastian Léonce, Baron von der Wenge, Count Lambsdorff (born 5 November 1966), commonly known as Alexander, Count Lambsdorff (german: Alexander Graf Lambsdorff) is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party of Germany, part of ...

represented the FDP in the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

. He has been a member of the Bundestag since September 2017. Lambsdorff married Renate Lepper in 1953; they had two daughters and a son. He was married to Alexandra von Quistorp from 1975 until his death on 5 December 2009. He is survived by all three children.

Notes

References

External links