Camille Gutt
Gutt at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944
Managing Director of the
International Monetary Fund
In office
6 May 1946 – 5 May 1951
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byIvar Rooth
Personal details
Born
Camille Guttenstein

(1884-11-14)14 November 1884
Brussels, Belgium
Died7 June 1971(1971-06-07) (aged 86)
Brussels, Belgium
Alma materUniversité Libre de Bruxelles
Profession
  • Lawyer
  • economist

Camille Gutt (14 November 1884 – 7 June 1971), born Camille Guttenstein, was a Belgian economist, politician, and industrialist who served as the first managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 1946 to 1951. He was the architect of a monetary reform plan that facilitated the recovery of the economy of Belgium after the Second World War.

Early life

Born in Brussels, he was a son of Max Guttenstein and Marie-Paule Schweitzer. Max Guttenstein had moved to Belgium from Austria-Hungary in 1877 and became a Belgian citizen in 1886.[1][2] Camille Gutt attended high school at the Royal Athenaeum in Ixelles. Gutt obtained a PhD in legal studies, and a master's degree in political and social sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). During his study, he met Claire Frick, whom he married in 1906. The marriage gave birth to three sons: Jean-Max (1914–1941), François (1916–1944) and Etienne (1922–2011).[3] Gutt was Protestant, although from Jewish origin.[4][5][6]

Career

Camille Gutt worked in various industries, such as in the Société Générale de Belgique and Groupe Empain as well as politics. During World War I, Gutt worked for Georges Theunis and again from 1920 until 1924 as his Chief of Cabinet. Later, Gutt also worked for Emile Francqui. Camille Gutt was Minister of Finance of Belgium in 1934–1935 and 1939–1940, Minister of Finance, Economics and Traffic in 1940–1942, Minister of Finance and economics in 1942–1943, and Minister of Finance in 1943–1944 in the Belgian government in exile in London.

Gutt was responsible for saving the Belgian franc before and after World War II. Before the war, he saved the Belgian currency by secretly transferring the gold reserves of the Belgian National Bank out of Nazi reach. After the war, he stabilized the Belgian franc and forestalled inflation, with what still is known as the Gutt operation. Camille Gutt also played a major role in forging the Benelux, and by this contributed to the formation of the European Union. He was the inaugural Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 1946 to 1951, after which he was a partner at the Banque Lambert until his retirement in 1964.[7]: 4 

Honours

Selected publications

  • ——— (1947), "The International Monetary Fund and Its Functions", Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 22 (2): 49–56, doi:10.2307/1173022.
  • ——— (1948), "Exchange Rates and the International Monetary Fund", Review of Economics and Statistics, 30 (2): 81–90, doi:10.2307/1928786.

References

  1. ↑ Camille Gutt Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ An unusual postcard Archived 3 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ Éliane Gubin (2006). Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIXe et XXe siècles. Lannoo Uitgeverij. pp. 261–262. ISBN 978-2-87386-434-7.
  4. ↑ "The Participation of Jews in the Allied Armies". Yad Vashem.
  5. ↑ Hunton|CNBC.com, Ed. "Top of the World: Former IMF Chiefs". CNBC. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  6. ↑ "Jewish Belgian politicians - FamousFix.com list". FamousFix.com. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  7. ↑ Anne-Myriam Dutrieue (2010), Le baron Léon Lambert, un banquier et financier belge d’envergure internationale du XXe siècle (PDF)
  8. ↑ Recueil Des Cours, Collected Courses, 1948, Volume 72.

Further reading

  • Crombois, J.-F. (1999), "Camille Gutt et la création du Fonds monétaire international (1940-1946)", Relations Internationales (in French), 99: 289–305 (in French).
  • Crombois, J.-F. (2000), Camille Gutt: Les finances et la guerre, 1940–1945 (in French), Gerpinnes: Quorum/Ceges-Soma, ISBN 2-87399-102-X (in French).
  • Eichengreen, Barry J. (1995), "'Belgian miracle' to slow growth: the impact of the Marshall Plan and the European Payments Union", Europe's Post-War Recovery, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 271–291, ISBN 0-521-48279-8.
  • Crombois, Jean-François (2001). "Gutt, Camille" (PDF). Nouvelle Biographie Nationale. Vol. 6. Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique. pp. 228–32.
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