Editing Hermann Josef Abs

{{Short description|German banker and advisor}}
{{Expand German|topic=bio|date=December 2021}}
[[File:Hermann Josef Abs - altersskeptisch.jpg|thumb|Hermann Josef Abs.]]

'''Hermann Josef Abs''' (15 October 1901, [[Bonn]] – 5 February 1994, [[Bad Soden]])<ref name="Who Was Who">{{cite book|title=Who Was Who in America, 1993-1996, vol. 11|year=1996|publisher=Marquis Who's Who|location=New Providence, N.J.|isbn=0837902258|page=[https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoinameri11marq/page/1 1]|chapter=Abs, Hermann J.|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoinameri11marq}}</ref> was a leading Nazi banker and advisor to Chancellor Adenauer. He was a member of the board of directors of [[Deutsche Bank]] from 1938 to 1945, as well as of 44 other companies,<ref name="who's who">{{cite book|last1=Wistrich|first1=Robert|title=Who's Who In Nazi Germany|date=27 April 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1138171558|pages=1–2|edition=third}}</ref> including [[IG Farben]]. As the most powerful commercial banker of the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]], he was, according to economic journalist Adam LeBor, "the lynchpin of the continent wide plunder".<ref>{{cite book|last1=LeBor|first1=Adam|title=Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World|date=28 May 2013|publisher=PublicAffairs|isbn=978-1610392549}}</ref> The Allies arrested him in January 1946; however, British intervention got him freed after three months, and German courts later dropped all charges.

He was chairman of [[Deutsche Bank]], and contributed to the reconstruction of the German economy. He chaired the German credit facility that distributed the counterpart funds created by the Marshall plan. Working closely with Chancellor [[Konrad Adenauer]], he was a leader in rebuilding heavy industry, and helped draft the investment policy for basic industries in 1952. He played a major diplomatic role in resolving the prewar German debts at the London War Debt Agreement of 1953. In 1953 he negotiated the restitution to Israel and individual Jews for the Holocaust.<ref>Buse and Doerr, pp 5-6</ref>

== Controversies about Joest WWII role ==
In 1974, the artist [[Hans Haacke]] revealed the supposed role of Abs with  the Nazi regime in a project for the exhibition Manet-PROJEKT '74' which detailed, in ten panels, the ownership history of Édouard Manet's [[A Bundle of Asparagus|Bunch of Asparagus]] (1880).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hans Haacke Institutional Critique |url=http://ewaneumann.com/websites/haacke/project74.html |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=ewaneumann.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-01-16 |title=Review: Hans Haacke's New Museum Survey Is Important—and Commonplace – ARTnews.com |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/hans-haacke-new-museum-review-1202669974/ |access-date=2023-01-16 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116032525/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yvsPIAk1nFgJ:https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/hans-haacke-new-museum-review-1202669974/&cd=12&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera |archive-date=2023-01-16 }}</ref> The Wallraf-Richartz Museum rejected the Haacke display.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hans Haacke: Memory and Instrumental Reason |url=https://monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Buchloh_Benjamin_HD_1988_Hans_Haacke_Memory_and_Instrumental_Reason.pdf |publisher=Art in America}}</ref>

In 1995, studies of the Deusche Bank archives by [[Harold James (historian)#German history|Harold James]] show that, while the DB helped the Nazi in different variating degrees, direct and indirectly, there has various links between Abs and [[German resistance to Nazism|anti-Nazi resistance]] during the war, while Abs decided not direct participate in resistance organized acts, he went to various secret meetings and such links were described as something that made James "astounded".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mitchener |first=Brandon |date=February 22, 1995 |title=Deutsche Bank Admits It Helped Hitler : Confronting a Dark Past |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/business/worldbusiness/IHT-deutsche-bank-admits-it-helped-hitler-confronting.html |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417160427/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/business/worldbusiness/IHT-deutsche-bank-admits-it-helped-hitler-confronting.html |archive-date=17 April 2021 |access-date=9 November 2023 |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

After the war, he participated in the restitution to Israel and individual Jews for the Holocaust.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Other sources==
*''Hermann J. Abs'', in [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1673/Hermann-J-Abs Encyclopædia Britannica online]
* [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-hermann-abs-1392727.html Obituary: Hermann Abs]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/000062}}

{{Chief executives of Deutsche Bank}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abs, Hermann Josef}}
[[Category:1901 births]]
[[Category:1994 deaths]]
[[Category:Deutsche Bank people]]
[[Category:German bankers]]
[[Category:German chairpersons of corporations]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Bonn]]