Horst Köhler

Köhler was born in Skierbieszów (at that time named Heidenstein), in the General Government area of German-occupied Poland, as the seventh child of Elisabeth and Eduard Köhler, into a family of Bessarabia Germans from Rîșcani in Romanian Bessarabia (near Bălți in present-day Moldova). Horst Köhler's parents, ethnic Germans and Romanian citizens, had to leave their home in Bessarabia in 1940 during the Nazi-Soviet population transfers that followed the invasion of Poland and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which awarded Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. As part of the Generalplan Ost, they were resettled in 1942 at Skierbieszów, a village near Zamość, Poland (which at that time was part of the General Government). As the Wehrmacht was pushed back and the first parts of Poland had to be abandoned in 1944, the Köhler family fled to Leipzig. In 1953, they left the Soviet Zone – via West Berlin – to escape from the communist regime. The family lived in refugee camps until 1957, when they settled in Ludwigsburg. Horst Köhler hence spent most of his first 14 years as a refugee.

Career in the civil service

Köhler joined the civil service in 1976, when he was employed in the Federal Ministry of Economics. In 1981, he was employed in the Staatskanzlei des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (chancellery of the state government of Schleswig-Holstein) under Minister-president Gerhard Stoltenberg.

On 1 October 1982, Helmut Kohl (CDU) became Chancellor of Germany. He formed the First Kohl cabinet. Upon Stoltenberg's recommendation (who was Federal Finance Minister in Kohl's first, second and third cabinets until 21 April 1989), Köhler was made head of Stoltenberg's office in the Federal Ministry of Finance. Köhler rose to Director General for financial policy and federal industrial interests in 1987. In 1989, he became Director General for currency and credit.

Career in banking 1993–2000

Between 1993 and 1998, he served as president of the association of savings banks in Germany, Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband.

In September 1998, Köhler was appointed president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and settled in London, where the headquarters of the bank is located. The EBRD then was facing annual losses of US$305 million, largely due to the 1998 Russian financial crisis. He took stock of the situation, then began to refocus the EBRD's notoriously lax investment policies and tighten up on opulence at the bank itself. At the same time, he was widely reputed to clash with his American vice president, Charles Frank, and other EBRD officials reportedly complained about his temper and management style.

In 1969, Köhler married Eva Köhler (née Bohnet), a teacher. They had two children, a daughter Ulrike (born in 1972) and a son Jochen (born in 1977). Köhler was a member of the Protestant Church in Germany. A passionate swimmer, runner and cross-country skier, Köhler chose to spend much of his time in natural surroundings. Köhler lived with his wife in Berlin and Chiemgau.

Köhler died in Berlin on 1 February 2025 after a short illness, 21 days short of his 82nd birthday.