Klaus Karl Anton von Dohnanyi (; born 23 June 1928) is a German politician of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(SPD). He served as mayor of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

between 1981 and 1988. As of , he is the oldest living former head of a german state government.

Early life and career

Dohnanyi was born in

, the son of Christine von Dohnanyi and

Hans von Dohnanyi Hans von Dohnanyi (; originally ''Johann von Dohnányi'' ; 1 January 1902 – 8 or 9 April 1945) was a Germans, German jurist. He used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape Germany, worked with German resistance to Nazism, German r ...

, a lawyer, and a nephew of the Lutheran theologian

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the s ...

. His grandfather was the celebrated Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi. Both his father and uncle were executed in 1945 as members of the anti-Nazi German Resistance. His younger brother Christoph is a conductor. He also has a sister, Barbara. After studying law at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

, and later in the United States at Columbia,

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

and

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

universities, Dohnanyi started his career with the Max Planck Institute for International Private Law. He then moved to

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

, the car manufacturer, working for the company in both

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

and

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

where he was head of the Planning Division. From 1960 to 1967, he was a Managing Partner of the Institute for Market Research and Management Consulting in Munich.

Political career

In 1969 Dohnanyi was elected to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Federal

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

(the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

) from the state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

and served in the Economics ministry as state secretary, and later as Federal Minister of Education and Science until 1981. In 1981, Dohnanyi was elected First Mayor of his home city, and thus Minister-President of Hamburg, one of the federal

States of Germany The Federal Republic of Germany is a federation and consists of sixteen partly sovereign ''states''. Of the sixteen states, thirteen are so-called area-states ('Flächenländer'); in these, below the level of the state government, there is a ...

. He served two terms as First Mayor, from 24 June 1981 until 8 June 1988. After the

fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (, ) on 9 November in German history, 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions we ...

and with German unification, Dohnanyi became involved with the restructuring programme in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, and from 1993 to 1996 was a special adviser on Market Economy and State to the Board of the

Treuhandanstalt The (, " Trust agency"), colloquially referred to as , was an agency established by the government of the German Democratic Republic to reprivatise/ privatise East German enterprises, Volkseigene Betriebe (VEBs), prior to German reunification ...

and BvS, its successor company, responsible for privatising state-owned companies in the former East Germany. Dohnanyi is a member of the , a cross-party think-tank of conservative-liberal orientation. In 2004, Dohnanyi co-chaired (alongside Edgar Most) a government-appointed commission which presented Minister

Manfred Stolpe Manfred Stolpe (16 May 1936 – 29 December 2019) was a German Canon law, canonist, Theology, theologian and politician who served as Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (Germany), Federal Minister of Transport, Building an ...

, then serving as cabinet minister charged with eastern reconstruction, with a 29-page report ("Recommendations for a Change in Direction for Development East").

Other activities (selection)

* AIESEC Germany, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities for the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg. Housed in three locations in and around Ber ...

, Member of the Senate *

Bertelsmann Stiftung The Bertelsmann Stiftung is an independent Foundation (nonprofit), foundation under private law, based in Gütersloh, Germany. It was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn as the result of social, corporate and fiscal considerations. The foundati ...

, Member of the Advisory Board (1989–1998) * Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), Member of the Board of Trustees * Hamburger Theaterfestival, Member of the Board of TrusteesBoard of Trustees
Hamburger Theaterfestival.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dohnanyi, Klaus von 1928 births Living people German people of Hungarian descent Mayors of Hamburg Education ministers of Germany Klaus von Dohnanyi Members of the Bundestag for Rhineland-Palatinate Members of the Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party of Germany Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Politicians from Hamburg Max Planck Society alumni