Alexander Menne

Alexander Menne    (politician)
Born	20 June 1904 Dortmund, Germany
Died	3 March 1993 (Age 88) Kronberg im Taunus
Nationality	German
Religion	Catholic
Member of	Atlantic Bridge (Germany)
Party	FDP
Transatlantic German politician (FDP) and industrial manager who attended 3 Bilderbergs in the 1950s.  Member of the Bundestag  In office 31 May 1972 - November 1972  Member of the Bundestag  In office 1961 - 1969 Succeeded by Karl Ahrens, Kurt Georg Kiesinger  Vice President In office 1949 - 1968 Employer Federation of German Industries Boss Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, Lyndon Johnson Bilderberger

Wilhelm Alexander Menne was a German industrial manager and politician (FDP).

In the immediate post-war period, Menne contributed significantly to the re-organisation of Germany’s economy and society. He attended 3 Bilderberg meetings in the 1950s. He sat on the executive board of Atlantik-Brücke.

Early career

After attending the Realgymnasium in Dortmund, the merchant's son Alexander Menne completed an apprenticeship as a bank clerk. He first worked as an industrial and export clerk, then became a manager in industry and was a board member or director of the Gleno Paint Products company in London from 1929 to 1939. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he returned to Germany. From 1940 to 1951 he was a member of the board of the paint manufacturer Glasurit-Werke Max Winkelmann AG, from which the company BASF Coatings later emerged.

Since 1940, Menne was the head of the department in the Reich Ministry of Armament and Ammunition. In 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo on suspicion of "undermining military preparedness", high treason, and insulting der Führer and imprisoned for ten months. He then went into hiding with farmers in Brandenburg until the end of the war.

Post war career

After the Second World War, Menne took part in the splitting of I.G. Farben. In the autumn of 1945, he received the approval of the occupying power to establish an association of chemical enterprises and was president of the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI) from 1946 to 1956. In addition, he held numerous other honorary positions, for example as president of the German-American Society and Steuben-Schurz-Society, private organizations also fostering German-American relations.

As co-founder of the large I.G. Farben successor Farbwerke Hoechst, he was a member of the Executive Board of the company in Frankfurt from 1952 to 1969. He also served as vice president of the Federation of German Industries(BDI), which he co-founded, from 1949 to 1968. He also had supervisory board mandates and was a Rotarian.

In 1961 Menne held a speech at the German-American Chamber of Commerce in New York where he said that "We have always looked at the Common Market as a political idea. And who was the inventor of this idea? The United States. It was your State Department which, under President Truman's administration, wanted - for political reasons, mind you - a European community. We in Germany knew that it would not be exactly to our advantage but we agreed...What we actually wanted was an Atlantic Community..If we have an Atlantic Community one day..then we will have a bloc which is economically strong enough to stop communism."

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1955 September	23 September 1955	25 September 1955	Germany Bavaria Garmisch-Partenkirchen	The third Bilderberg, in West Germany. The subject of a report by Der Spiegel which inspired a heavy blackout of subsequent meetings.
Bilderberg/1956	11 May 1956	13 May 1956	Denmark Fredensborg	The 4th Bilderberg meeting, with 147 guests, in contrast to the generally smaller meetings of the 1950s. Has two Bilderberg meetings in the years before and after
Bilderberg/1957 February	15 February 1957	17 February 1957	US St Simons Island Georgia (State)	The earliest ever Bilderberg in the year, number 5, was also first one outside Europe.

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