Horst Köhler

Horst Köhler was a German economist and politician who served as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (2000–04) and as president of Germany (2004–10). Horst also was Germany’s lead official in the difficult negotiations that led to the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, which founded the European Union.

Köhler’s parents were ethnic Germans who had been forced to move from Romania to Poland. During World War II, shortly after Köhler was born, his family fled the advancing Soviet army and settled in East Germany; they escaped to the West in 1953. Köhler earned a doctorate in economics and political sciences in West Germany from the Eberhard-Karl University of Tübingen. He served (1969–76) as a scientific research assistant at the university’s Institute for Applied Economic Research before joining the West German government. He became a member of the Christian Democratic Union in 1981.

In the early 1990s, as deputy finance minister in the government of Helmut Kohl, Köhler played an important role in the economic planning for German reunification (1990) and also helped provide aid to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. His major achievement at the time, however, was as Germany’s lead official in the difficult negotiations that led to the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, which founded the European Union.

In 1993 Köhler became the head of the national association of German savings banks, and in 1998 he was chosen to run the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In that capacity he helped shift the EBRD’s priorities away from large infrastructure projects and toward support for small businesses. He also succeeded in improving the EBRD’s finances: in 1998 the bank lost $252.8 million, but in 1999 it earned a profit of $41 million.

On March 23, 2000, after months of international wrangling, Köhler was named the managing director and chairman of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a United Nations agency established in 1944 to secure international monetary cooperation, stabilize exchange rates, and expand international liquidity. His accession was due in large part to the determination of Germany’s chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, that—for the first time—a German should head the IMF. Schröder’s first choice for the post, Caio Koch-Weser, the country’s deputy finance minister, was rejected by the United States because he lacked the stature “to command support from around the world.” Undaunted by the rejection of Koch-Weser, Schröder embarked on a vigorous and ultimately successful campaign to persuade other European countries, some of which had their own candidates for the post, to line up behind Köhler.

As head of the IMF, Köhler faced many critics of former IMF policies. In the United States, for example, both Congress and the Bill Clinton administration strongly urged the IMF to follow more “hard-line” economic principles while undertaking its task of rescuing financially troubled countries. Certain IMF “rescue packages” were assailed as being ineffective (Russia), causing undue hardship (Indonesia), or failing to punish banks and investors adequately for risky investments (South Korea). In 2001 Köhler announced the creation of a new unit of the IMF, the International Capital Markets Department. It was intended to streamline the information-gathering processes that allowed the fund to anticipate imminent financial crises.

Köhler remained with the IMF until 2004, when he resigned following his election to the German presidency by a conservative coalition in the Federal Convention (a special assembly that convenes to select the president). Once elected, he proved to be an advocate of economic reform and globalization. Though the position of German president is largely a ceremonial one, Köhler exercised what power he did have, as when, in 2005, he followed Chancellor Schröder’s proposal to dissolve the parliament and move national elections up by a year. He was reelected in 2009 by a single vote. During a radio interview in May 2010, Köhler stated that some German military deployments, such as the mission in Afghanistan, were to protect the country’s economic interests. The remarks proved controversial, and he resigned shortly thereafter.

In 2017 UN Secretary-General António Guterres named Köhler his personal envoy to Western Sahara, a disputed region in Africa. Two years later Köhler stepped down from the post, citing health reasons.