Professor Manfred Pohl (born 26 May 1944) is a German business historian. He is the author of over thirty corporate history books, as well as numerous articles and chapters. He has also published a number of poems and short stories. Manfred Pohl is an honorary professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He is also the founder of the organization My Europe 2100 and the Frankfurter Zukunftsrat.
Manfred Pohl was born on 26 May 1944 in the town of Bliesransbach, near Saarbrücken in the Saarland region of Germany. After completing an apprenticeship at the Saarland Credit Bank, he studied German, History, Philosophy and Economics. In 1972, he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on the history of banking in the Saarland.
Between 1972 and 2001, Manfred Pohl led the Historical Institute of Deutsche Bank. From 1981 he lectured at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, leading courses on Corporate History and Corporate Culture. In 1992 he was awarded an honorary professorship by the university's School of Finance.
In addition to his academic position and his work at Deutsche Bank, Manfred Pohl has founded numerous nonprofit organizations including eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History), founded in 1990, the Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs, founded in 2001 and the Frankfurter Zukunftsrat, founded in 2008.
In 1998 he founded Europoint, which supported the introduction of the Euro currency in the twelve EU countries that originally adopted the currency in 1999/2001. Activities of note included the "Euro-World" project, a competition where over 1000 children suffering from cancer painted designs for the forthcoming Euro coins. Fourteen winning designs were purchased by the European Central Bank, of which two remain on display at the Bank, with the other twelve being donated back to the hospitals of the children who created the designs. [1] Europoint also commissioned the illuminated Euro sign that stands outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. After Europoint was dissolved in 2002, ownership of the sign was transferred to the then newly formed Frankfurter Kultur Komitee. [2]
Manfred Pohl has written numerous histories of German companies and business ventures, among them Deutsche Bank, M. DuMont Schauberg, [3] Hochtief and the Baghdad Railway. He has also authored and edited works on economic and social themes, especially related to corporate social responsibility and business history (see publications list below).
The Deutsche Mark, abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" ( ), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was typically called the "Deutschmark". One Deutsche Mark was divided into 100 pfennigs.
The Deutsche Bundesbank, literally "German Federal Bank", is the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany and as such part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). Due to its strength and former size, the Bundesbank is the most influential member of the ESCB. Both the Bundesbank and the European Central Bank (ECB) are located in Frankfurt, Germany. It is sometimes referred to as "Buba" for Bundesbank, while its usual abbreviation is BBk in Germany and internationally DBB.
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is the world's 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. It has operations from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm.
Theodor Waigel is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). He represented Neu-Ulm in the Bundestag from 1976 to 2002.
The National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the Saarland was founded in the spring of 1950 in the Saar Protectorate, which existed from 1947 to 1956, a region of Western Germany that was occupied in 1945 by France. As a separate team, Saar took part in its sole Olympic Games at the 1952 Summer Olympics before being allowed to rejoin the German team in 1956. Thirty-six competitors, 31 men and five women, took part in 32 events in nine sports.
Hochtief AG is a German construction company based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Hochtief is Germany's largest construction company and operates globally, ranking as one of the largest general construction companies in the United States through its Turner subsidiary, and in Australia through a 90% shareholding in CIMIC Group. In 2010 it employed more than 70,000 employees across five corporate divisions. One of these, Hochtief Concessions, is a major airport operator. The others are involved with construction project planning, finance, construction and operation. Work done in 2010 was €23.23 billion, with more than 80% coming from operations outside Germany.
Helaba, short for Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, is a commercial bank with core regions in Hesse and Thuringia, Germany offering financial services to companies, banks, institutional investors and the public sector, both within Germany and internationally. At the same time, it is the central clearing institution and service provider for 40 percent of German savings banks. Helaba is an institution incorporated under public law. With approximately 6,300 employees and two headquarters in Frankfurt and Erfurt, the bank maintains branches in Düsseldorf and Kassel as well as offices in Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and Muenster. On an international level, Helaba acts through branches and representative offices in Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Moscow, Shanghai, and Singapore. Frankfurter Sparkasse, the leading retail bank in the Rhine-Main region, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Helaba. The Helaba Group also comprises the online bank 1822direkt, LBS Hessen-Thüringen and WIBank. The latter implements development programmes of the State of Hesse. Further Helaba subsidiaries are Helaba Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft and the OFB Group.
The Kunze-Knorr brake is an automatic compressed-air brake for goods, passenger and express trains. It was the first graduated brake for goods trains in Europe. When it was introduced after the First World War, goods train brakes switched from hand operation to compressed-air in various European countries. The Deutsche Reichsbahn alone put the cost of equipping German goods wagons with Kunze-Knorr brakes between 1918 and 1927 at 478.4 million Reichsmarks. The operating cost savings from faster goods services and having fewer brakemen was assessed by the Reichsbahn at almost 96.3 million Reichsmark annually.
Manfred Römbell was a German author.
Jens Weidmann is a German economist who served as president of the Deutsche Bundesbank between 2011 and 2021. He also served as chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements.
The Association of German Private Banks is the association of commercial banks in Germany and a key lobby group for Germany's financial sector. It was founded in 1951 in Cologne as an Eingetragener Verein, succeeding the pre-war Centralverband des deutschen Bank- und Bankiergewerbes (1901-1945). In 1999 it moved to Berlin, while its the publishing subsidiary Bankverlag remained in Cologne. The association also maintains an office in Brussels.
Hilmar Hoffmann was a German stage and film director, cultural politician and academic lecturer. He founded the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. He was for decades an influential city councillor in Frankfurt, where he initiated the Museumsufer of 15 museums, including the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. He was the president of the Goethe-Institut and taught at universities such as Bochum and Tel Aviv. He wrote the book Kultur für alle, which was a motto of his life and work.
Wilfried Loth is a German historian and political scientist.
Manager Magazin is a German monthly business magazine focusing on business, finance and management based in Hamburg, Germany.
The European Association for Banking and Financial History (eabh) is an independent, non-profit association based in Frankfurt am Main. Founded in 1990, the eabh aims to promote research on banking history; support the preservation historically valuable archive material of public and private banking institutions; and facilitate dialogue on key challenges and opportunities to the historical study of finance, insurance, and globalization. It maintains a global network of financial professionals and academics who meet to discuss and encourage projects in the field of financial and banking history. The eabh currently has 80 member organisations.
Peter Lieb is a German military historian who specializes in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He held positions at Institute of Contemporary History, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. Widely published in the field, Lieb specializes in the Western theatre of World War II.
The Euro-Skulptur by Ottmar Hörl set up at Willy-Brandt-Platz in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is one of two copies of the work that have been put on public display. It is a 14-metre (46 ft) tall electronic sign that shows a Euro sign and twelve stars around, weighing 50 tonnes.
Dieter Pohl is a German historian and author who specialises in the Eastern European history and the history of mass violence in the 20th century.
Kurt Neven DuMont was a German newspaper publisher and Nazi Party member.