Walther Leisler Kiep

His middle name "Leisler" came from Jacob Leisler, a German-born colonist and ancestor of Kiep, who participated in early independence movements in New York and was hanged by the English in 1691.

Kiep's maternal grandfather, Walther vom Rath, had been a member of the Prussian House of Representatives from 1894 to 1898 and later a member of the Prussian House of Lords until 1918.

Walther Gottlieb Louis Leisler Kiep (5 January 1926 – 9 May 2016) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Coming from a liberal family, Kiep was born on 5 January 1926 in Hamburg to Louis Leisler Kiep, a navy captain and business man, and Eugenie Maria Anna vom Rath.

Kiep went to school in Hamburg and Istanbul, achieving his Abitur in 1943 before joining the Wehrmacht.

On 20 April 1944, Adolf Hitler's birthday, he joined the Nazi Party.

In the same year his uncle, Otto Carl Kiep, was executed by the Nazis for his membership in the Kreisau Circle.

After the war, he started to study history and economics, but did not graduate.

Before moving into politics, he worked for the Insurance Company of North America from 1948 to 1955.

From 1950, Kiep was married to Charlotte Kiep, born 1920, daughter of IG Farben board member and convicted war criminal Fritz ter Meer.

They met when Kiep was only thirteen years old.

He needed to visit Fritz ter Meer in Landsberg Prison to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage.

They had four children together, sons Walther, Michael and daughters Charlotte and Christiane.

Starting in 1955, he worked for a company called Gradmann und Holler, an insurance broker company for large businesses.

Kiep became a member of the CDU in the fall of 1961, gaining a seat in the county council of Obertaunus in 1963.

He was a member of the Bundestag between 1965 and 1976 and again from 1980 to 1982.

Following the 1965 federal election, he became a member of the Bundestag, winning a mandate in the Obertaunus constituency.

He retained his seat in 1969 and 1972, this time as part of his party's electoral list in Hessen.

From 1971 until 1992, he was treasurer of his party at the federal level.

In 1972, Kiep was one of only a few CDU parliamentarians who voted yes to the Basic Treaty (Grundlagenvertrag) between West and East Germany.

Other supporters of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik were Richard von Weizsäcker, Karl Carstens and Olaf von Wrangel.

During the 1972 federal elections, Kiep was named as prospective Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development in the shadow cabinet of Rainer Barzel.

On 30 November 1974, an assassination attempt was made on Kiep, during which a man fired three shots at the door of his sauna, though he remained uninjured.

The assassin was never found and leads hinting towards involvement of the Red Army Faction proved inconclusive.

As the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote a year later, some party colleagues allegedly considered it possible that Kiep had staged the attack himself.

Their second son, Michael Jürgen, died in 1975, aged 24.

The parents started a foundation for young journalists in his name.

From a previous marriage of his wife's, Kiep was stepfather to another son, Edmund.

After switching to state-level politics, he served as minister of economy (1976–77) and minister of finance (1976–80) in Lower Saxony under Ernst Albrecht.

When Kiep became minister in Lower Saxony in 1976, Volkswagen and other local companies went into business with Gradmann und Holler, creating a possible conflict of interest for the minister.

Kiep also served on Volkswagen's board of directors.

Kiep denied abusing his power as minister, saying that the deal with Volkswagen had been financially damaging rather than profitable for his company.

Due to his successful business ventures, Kiep was considered to be one of the richest politicians in Germany.

In an interview, Kiep told Playboy that he could live well just from the interest from his savings.

He left parliament on 24 February 1976 to join the state government in Lower Saxony.

During his tenure as minister, he also held a seat in the Landtag of Lower Saxony from 1978 to 1980.

In 1982, Kiep was the leading candidate for the CDU in two successive state elections in Hamburg, losing both to incumbent Klaus von Dohnányi.

Kiep owned 15 percent of the company in 1982.

His involvement with Gradmann und Holler sparked controversy.

In this position, Kiep installed a system of unreported income accounts, leading to the CDU donations scandal in 1999.