Wilfrid Baumgartner
| Wilfrid Baumgartner link (Politician, central banker) | |
|---|---|
| File:Wilfrid Baumgartner.png | |
| Born | 21 May 1902 Paris, France |
| Died | 1 June 1978 Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Alma mater | lycée Buffon,Sciences Po,Sorbonne |
| Interests | Marshall Plan |
Governor of the Bank of France, Bilderberg Steering Committee | |
Wilfrid Baumgartner was a French civil servant and central banker.[1] He was a member of the Bilderberg Steering Committee.
Background
Wilfrid Baumgartner's father was doctor Amédée Baumgartner, a hospital surgeon and president of the National Academy of Medicine[2]. Wilfrid attended secondary school at the Lycée Buffon. During the First World War, he attended high school in Poitiers.
Education
He enrolled in the Free School of Political Sciences, and later obtained a bachelor of arts and a law degree from the University of Paris. He defended a doctoral thesis in law devoted to the Rentenmark (German transitional currency, between 1919 and 1923) and German monetary policy, under the supervision of Louis Germain-Martin. The thesis would be read carefully by Doctor Hjalmar Schacht, Minister of the Economy in the Third Reich.[3]
Marriage
He married in 1930 Christiane Mercier, daughter of the industrialist Ernest Mercier. They had three children.
Career
He became inspector of finance in 1925. He taught courses on monetary policy at the Sciences Po from 1932.[4][4]
From March to December 1930, he was the cabinet director of Finance Minister Paul Reynaud. After working as a Director of the Treasury (Directeur générale du Trésor) in the Ministry of Finance from January 1935 to November 1936. He was president of the government credit institution Crédit National between 1936 and 1949.[3]
In 1943, he was deported to Buchenwald as a VIP hostage.[5]
In 1946, he chaired the London international conference on the reparation of war damage.[3] He was involved in the implementation of the Marshall Plan.[6]
In 1949, [[Maurice Petsche] appointed him Governor of the Bank of France and held this post until January 1960.[3]
He refused the first time the proposal to be appointed Minister of the Economy by Michel Debré. However, he accepted the proposal some time later, in 1960, to replace Antoine Pinay as Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs in the Michel Debré government, on January 13, 1960. He remained so for two years. He was in turn replaced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on January 18, 1962.[3]
In 1961, even before leaving the government, he became the president of the Alliance française, an association with the aim of spreading the French language abroad. He held this position until his death.
He became Président-directeur général (CEO) of the chemical and pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc (1963-1973). He was also a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques between 1965 and his death, and a member of the Economic and Social Council (Conseil économique, social et environnemental), a body that advises the government and parliament on economic and social issues, from 1969 to 1974.
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20250215001352/https://books.openedition.org/igpde/1022?lang=en
- ↑ Coll., Nouveau dictionnaire national des contemporains, Paris, Les éditions du nouveau dictionnaire national des contemporains, 1964, 948 p., p. 58.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/wilfrid-baumgartner/
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Gérard Vincent et Anne-Marie Dethomas, Sciences po: Histoire d'une réussite, Plon (réédition numérique FeniXX), 1er janvier 1987 (ISBN 978-2-259-26077-0, lire en ligne [archive])
- ↑ Livre-mémorial des déportés de France arrêtés par mesure de répression et dans certains cas par mesure de persécution 1940-1945, tome 1, p. 1 021.
- ↑ https://books.openedition.org/igpde/1030