Former chairman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF), German Economy Minister, and reparations negotiator for victims of Nazi labor camps, Otto Lambsdorff died on December 4 at the age of 82. Lambsdorff served as Minister of Economics under Chancellors Schmidt and Kohl and led the classical liberal Free Democratic Party from 1988-93. According to the Telegraph:
Lambsdorff was a contemporary of Margaret Thatcher and shared her views on economic management as a vociferous free marketeer prepared to stand up to powerful trades unions. He incurred their enduring wrath when, returning from a trip to Japan, he remarked that German workers should work more and go sick less … He fought for lower corporate taxation and against state subsidies and bureaucracy, his unequivocal stand accounting for much of the FDP’s electoral success during these years.
In 1999, he was appointed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to be chief negotiator of reparations for victims of Nazi concentration camps. He is honored here by the World Jewish Congress.
Known as der Marktgraf, meaning “the market count”, Lambsdorff was chairman of the free-market think tank Friedrich Naumann Foundation from 1995 to 2006. FNF promotes individual rights, private property, free exchange, and liberty through civic education in Germany and throughout the world and has been a vital partner to Atlas.
Many accounts note that the Count brought eloquence, style, and exuberant personality to German politics. Atlas extends condolences to the family and friends of this dedicated freedom champion.
See here for the obituary from FNF and here from the Financial Times.
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He sounds like he was a good man. He sounds like the type of man Germany needed after WW2!
The History Man