Birgit Breuel

Birgit Breuel (née Münchmeyer; born 7 September 1937 in Hamburg-Rissen) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as president of the Treuhand Agency and as Commissioner General of Expo 2000 in Hannover. She later worked in several honorary positions.

Birgit Breuel
Breuel in June 1991
President of the Treuhandanstalt
In office 13 April 1991 – 31 December 1994
Appointed by	Helmut Kohl
Deputy	Heinrich Hornef
Preceded by	Detlev Rohwedder
Succeeded by	Heinrich Hornef (as President of the Bundesanstalt für vereinigungsbedingte Sonderaufgaben)
Minister of Finance of Lower Saxony
In office 9 July 1986 – 21 June 1990
Minister-President	Ernst Albrecht
Preceded by	Burkhard Ritz
Succeeded by	Hinrich Swieter
Minister for Economics and Transportation of Lower Saxony
In office 28 June 1978 – 9 July 1986
Minister-President	Ernst Albrecht
Preceded by	Erich Küpker
Succeeded by	Walter Hirche (Economy, Technology and Transport)
Member of the Hamburg Parliament
In office 14 April 1970 – 28 June 1978
Preceded by	multi-member district
Succeeded by	Manfred Sander
Constituency	Christian Democratic Union List
Personal details
Born	Birgit Münchmeyer (1937-09-07)7 September 1937 Hamburg-Rissen, Nazi Germany (now Germany)
Political party	Christian Democratic Union
Spouse	Ernst-Jürgen Breuel ​ (m. 1959)​
Alma mater	University of Hamburg (no degree) University of Oxford (no degree) University of Geneva (no degree)
Occupation	Politician retail merchant Executive

Early life and education

Birgit Münchmeyer came from a Lower Saxony family of traders and private bankers. She is the daughter of merchant bankers who owned the bank Münchmeyer & Co..^[1] On 8 August 1959 she married the Hamburg merchant Ernst-Jürgen Breuel (born 7 October 1931 in Hamburg).

Breuel studied political science at the Universities of Hamburg, Oxford and Geneva.

Political career

Career in state politics

In 1966, Breuel entered into the CDU. From 1978 to 1986 she was State Minister of Economy and Transport in Lower Saxony, then to 1990 was the State Minister of Finance in the cabinet of Minister-President Ernst Albrecht. She also served on the boards of various German corporations, including Volkswagen.^[2]

Treuhandanstalt

In 1990, Breuel was elected to the executive board of the Treuhand - a holding firm responsible for the sale of East German state assets. A year later she became the successor of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder. While Rohwedder had been cautious about the sale of most state assets, favouring a worker-owned solution if possible, Breuel favoured quick privatization. She departed in 1995 from this office.

Expo 2000

Breuel then became Commissioner-General of the World Expo Expo 2000 in Hanover.^[3]

Literature

• Birgit Breuel (Hg.): Ohne historisches Vorbild. Die Treuhandanstalt 1990 bis 1994 - eine kritische Würdigung. Berlin 2005 ISBN 3-936962-15-4
• Deutsches Geschlechterbuch. Band 128 der Gesamtreihe (Hamburg Band 10), p. 69/70, C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1962, ISSN 1438-7972.

See also

• List of German Christian Democratic Union politicians