Horst Metz

Horst Metz (6 July 1945 – 15 October 2022) was a German politician.

In 2002 he was appointed Finance Minister in the Saxony regional government. His resignation from ministerial office came unexpectedly in 2007, following a crisis involving a regional bank that had needed a bailout because of large-scale poorly timed investments in the US housing market.

Life

Early years Metz was born in a small village in northern central Germany some 35 km (20 miles) south of Schwerin, approximately two months after the end of the Second World War. By the time of his birth, the entire region had been incorporated into the post-war Soviet occupation zone which in October 1949 would become the German Democratic Republic, sponsored by the Soviet Union and in most respects operating under Soviet-style political and administrative institutions. After passing his School Final Exams in 1964, Horst Metz trained as a hydraulic engineer. Between 1965 and 1970, he studied at the Dresden University of Technology. He then undertook further research, obtaining his doctorate in 1972.

Professional career In 1972, Metz moved south and worked until 1987 as a researcher with the Elbe Waterways and Shipping Office in Dresden. In 1987 he took over as departmental head at the VEB Water Supply and Waste water treatment Service (WAB) in Dresden. In 1990 he took a job with the District Administration as Head of the Environmental Protection Department. The enquiry sat till May 1990, and Metz evidently emerged more widely known and with his own reputation enhanced. He retained his seat until 2009. Prominently associated with the Saxony bank's creation was the regional politician Georg Milbradt, who by 2002 had taken over in Saxony as the head of the regional government. Following his resignation as Finance Minister, however, Horst Metz would continue to defend the decisions he had taken to save the bank, and the way in which it was done.