Professor Dr. Dr. hc. mult. Horst Albach

Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Horst Albach (1931-2021) was an honorary professor at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management since 1990. He was also significantly involved in the establishment of WHU. Professor Albach was born in 1931 in Essen an der Ruhr and studied business administration, economics and law at the University of Cologne. In 1956 he became the assistant of Professor Erich Gutenberg, who supervised 8000 students together with his colleagues. This meant that the assistants had to mark around 30.000 pages of work a year from exercises through to seminar papers, diploma and doctoral theses. Following his habilitation in business administration in 1960 and periods as a private lecturer in Graz and Kiel, he taught for almost 30 years at the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms - University Bonn, later at the Free University of Berlin and after the fall of the Iron Curtain he was instrumental in building up the economics department at the Humboldt University in Berlin. From 1987 to 1990 he did a sabbatical away from Bonn in order to take on the Endowed Chair of International Management at WHU. Visiting professorships took him to Kabul (Afghanistan), Uppsala (Sweden), Johannesburg (South Africa), Northwestern University (Illinois, USA), Alcala de Henares (Spain), Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan), Kauppakorkeakulu (Helsinki, Finland) and the German-Russian MBA-Program in Moscow (Russian Federation).

Nine universities in total have awarded Professor Albach honorary doctorates in recognition of his academic achievements. Alongside his activities on the German Science and Humanities Council, the German Council of Economic Experts and the governmental commission charged with the privatization of the German Railway, Albach advised the Federal Government on economic matters for almost forty years while on the advisory council of the German Ministry of Economics. Albach was also active on the advisory boards of renowned German enterprises. Thus, he was chairman of the advisory board of the Deutsche Bahn AG for five years and was involved, among other things, in the advisory boards of Dresdner Bank, AEG AG, Kugelfischer Georg Schäfer KGaA, the Treuarbeit AG (today PWC) and was also chairman of the advisory boards of RölfsPartner Wirtschaftsrüfungs-AG and the Mercedes Automobile Holding GmbH. He also belongs to the advisory committee of the company ProLogis European Properties Fund, which is listed on the stock exchange.

Professor Albach's outstanding commitment towards the Federal Republic of Germany was honored in 2001 with the "Highest Order of Merit". He is bearer of the Order of Merit of the State of Rheinland – Palatinate and North Rhine – Westphalia. In addition, several nations abroad have honored him with awards. In 2000 Albach was the first business economist to be accepted into the fraternity "Pour le merite". He was the provost of this organization from 2005 to 2009.