Horst Koehler

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Horst Koehler, born 22 February 1943, is a German civil servant.

He was born into a family of Germans from Romanian Bessarabia who had settled in the village of Skierbieszow, Zamosc County, Eastern Poland in 1942 because of the 1940 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had made Bessarabia Soviet territory. He has seven siblings.

Prior to March 2004, he was the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and also served as the chairman of the IMF's Executive Board. He was appointed to both those positions in 2000, after the German government's first choice for the post, Caio Koch-Weser, was rejected by the United States.

Prior to joining the IMF, he had held positions within the German federal government – he was under-secretary of state in the finance ministry from 1990 to 1993, and he served as sherpa for Chancellor Helmut Kohl, preparing G7 summits and other international economic conferences. Between 1993 and 1998 he served as chair of the association of savings banks in Germany (Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband). In 1998 he was appointed president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

On 4 March 2004, he resigned his post with the IMF after being selected as the candidate of Germany's conservative and liberal opposition parties, the CDU, CSU and FDP, to succeed Johannes Rau as President of Germany. If his candidacy is successful, he will take office as the largely ceremonial Bundespraesident on 1 July 2004 for a five-year term. FDP and CDU currently hold a majority in the national assembly (Bundesversammlung), which is responsible for electing the President.

Koehler holds a PhD in economics and political science from the University of Tuebingen. He is married with two children.

External link

• Biographical information (IMF)