Orderly thinking has developed in Germany in a variety of ways.

One of the lesser-known representatives was Otto Klepper, a man who, due to the unfavorability of his time, had to lead an unsteady life.

He described himself as an "interim person".

The lawyer, who was born into a Huguenot family in 1888, had already made a steep ascent at a young age: in 1928 he took over the management of the Preußenkasse in Berlin;

a public-law institution that served as the central bank for cooperative banks.

Gerald Braunberger

Editor.

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Previously, the cash register had seemed sleepy after a description: "The operation inside was slow and dignified.

Anyone who called in after 2 or 3 p.m. was told that the company would now have to limit itself to the internal processing of day-to-day business and that new suggestions could not be accepted.” Klepper caused a stir, as the journalist Erwin Topf wrote: “The Pike got into the carp pond.

Now there is all this: intrigues, actions, memoranda, clique management, personnel policy moves, deals with share packages, conspiracies, polemics in the press, noise in parliament.

In the last village inn, the farmers still swear at Klepper.”

By changing the criteria for agricultural credits, the accused wanted to set in motion nothing less than an agrarian reform in the eastern provinces of the German Reich, which the dominant large landowners and their political allies saw as a frontal attack on their power.

The hatred of the German Nationalists and National Socialists grew even more after the entry of the non-party into the social-democratic government of Prussia in 1931. As finance minister of a centre-left state government, Klepper saw it as his duty to combat the growing influence of the extremes in the Reichstag.

However, after the "Prussian Strike" in the summer of 1932, the illegal disempowerment of the Prussian government by the Reich, he lost.

In the spring of 1933 he went with his family,

The fate of Germany has priority

Klepper became a restless wanderer, fleeing persecution from Finland to China, then to Paris, then to Mallorca, then to Paris again, then to a lonely town in south-west France and finally via Bermuda to Mexico.

This odyssey led to a separation from his family, who found a new home in the USA.

For Klepper, the fate of Germany always took precedence over the private fate of his family, writes his biographer Astrid von Pufendorf.

Klepper's complicated personality, which showed itself in energy, but also a tendency towards hermitage, arrogance and short-temperedness, stood in the way of a permanent association with political émigré circles.

Abroad, Klepper sorted out his ideas for a democratic, free-market, but also socially committed and cosmopolitan Germany.

He had foreseen the fall of National Socialism early on.

When Klepper returned to Germany in 1947, he was aware of the widespread reticence towards emigrants at the time.

However, he found like-minded people with a view to his vision of a future Germany in peace and freedom in the Frankfurt-based Economic Policy Society of 1947 (Wipog), which is celebrating its 75th birthday these days.

The first chairman of Wipog was the lawyer Rudolf Mueller.

His law firm Mueller Weitzel Weisner became Hengeler Mueller.

Klepper acted as deputy chairman of Wipog.

The company's desire to "bring its conception of the German and European situation to the general public" led to participation in the founding of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 1949. Klepper joined the management of the FAZ, but in 1951 he came there was a break between the FAZ and Wipog.

With the "Offene Welt" Wipog created its own magazine, but Klepper's enthusiasm seemed broken.

He was alienated from the Federal Republic, its parties and its daily politics, which seemed so far removed from his utopia of a better Germany.

He also attributed his deteriorating state of health to numerous disappointments: his return to Germany had not brought him home.

on the 11th