Our guest on 17.10.2010 Peter Krämer, Ship Operator

Shipping company owner Peter Krämer is one of Germany's most successful entrepreneurs and well known for his political involvement.

He was born on the second of December 1950 in the Austrian city of Salzburg as the son of a Hamburg shipping company owner. In 1968 he started studying sociology and educational sciences in Hamburg before switching to Cologne University to study law in 1972. His interest in politics started when he was at school and continued during his university years when he organized protests against the Vietnam war. In 1982 he joined the family shipping business Marine Services following the early death of his brother. He turned the company into one of the leading tanker businesses in the world, specializing in the transport of gas and chemicals. The group of companies he owns employs eighty people in Hamburg and 1200 seamen around the world. The 59 year old is still active on a political and social front. Together with UNICEF he is building schools in Africa. In Germany he has taken a position on the Iraq war and on the fairness of the tax system. Krämer has two sons and lives in Hamburg.