Helmut Schlesinger

Helmut Schlesinger (4 September 1924 – 23 December 2024) was a German economist and President of the Bundesbank from 1991 to 1993. Having worked for the institution and its precursor from 1952, he pursued monetary stability. Schlesinger was born in Penzberg, Bavaria, on 4 September 1924. His schooling was at Bavarian boarding schools until he joined the German military in 1943 and served for two years during World War II. He then studied economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, from which he graduated with a Diplom in 1948, and with a doctorate in economics in 1951. His thesis was about economic efficiency in the public administration sector. From 1949 to 1952, Schlesinger worked at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich. He entered the precursor of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank deutscher Länder, in 1952 and ascended rapidly to the position of a department head. In 1956, he served as Head of the Economic Analysis and Forecasting Division. In 1964, he was appointed Head of the Economics and Statistics Department; he became a member of the executive board in 1972.