Horst Albach ’59, H’99 died on December 25, 2021, in Bad Godesberg, Germany.

(The following was provided by Teller Report on December 28, 2021)

Horst Albach ’56, H’99

He was considered by many to be the grand master of German business administration. Horst Albach has now died at the age of 90.

He was the first business economist ever to be appointed to the club of the “Five Wise Men”.

To this day, there are almost only economists.

From 1978 to 1983, Horst Albach was a member of the Expert Council for the Assessment of Macroeconomic Development, as the body is officially called.

In fact, during this time Albach repeatedly came into conflict with the majority of the council’s economists.

He doubted whether one could infer the intensity of competition from the number of providers alone.

The classic rule, according to which more providers always mean more competition, was questionable.

In contrast to traditional regulatory policy, he was sometimes benevolent towards mergers and state industrial policy.

Albach liked to make practical arguments.

He also led the first management courses in Germany based on the model of American business schools.

Not only did he seek contact with practitioners, he also sat on the supervisory boards of well-known companies, such as Dresdner Bank, AEG and the Schwarzhaupt Group.

Many saw Horst Albach as the grand master of German business administration. He was born in 1931 as the son of a business journalist in Essen. He began his studies in business administration, economics and law in 1952 in the bombed-out Cologne, four years later he became the assistant to his doctoral supervisor Erich Gutenberg, who was considered a reformer of German business administration at the time. Albach later married his daughter Renate.

In 1961, at the age of only 30, Albach became professor of business administration in Bonn, where he then taught for almost 30 years.

After reunification, he moved to Berlin in 1990, first to the Free University and later to the Humboldt University, where he helped to build up the Faculty of Business and Economics.

Albach also taught at the private university WHU in Vallendar.

For his services he was accepted into the order “Pour le mérite” in 2000.

According to his son, Horst Albach died on December 25th at the age of 90 in Bad Godesberg.

WHU recognizes him, saying that Albach is “one of the most important experts and thought leaders in economics”.

He “helped shape generations of managers”