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Alfred Herrhausen: Eine deutsche Karriere. By Andreas Platthaus. Rowohlt-Berlin Verlag; 320 pages; euro19.90
ON NOVEMBER 30th 1989, a terrorist bomb killed Alfred Herrhausen on his way to work. Herrhausen carried the unilluminating title of "spokesman of the board of managing directors of Deutsche Bank". In reality, he was the head of the biggest bank in West Germany. The Red Army Faction, in one of its last operations, had taken out the most influential business leader in Europe of the time.
And what a time it was: the Berlin Wall had just been breached, the Soviet Union was falling apart, and Mexico, Brazil and Poland all needed to restructure their debt. Herrhausen was deeply involved in all three areas: as adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, as the arranger of the Soviet Union's last big credit and as the spearhead of an initiative to link debt forgiveness with a country's readiness to undergo political and economic reform.
At the same time, he was trying to turn Deutsche Bank upside down. In fact he...