It’s no secret that you can make a lot of money with people’s vanity, and nobody knew that better than title dealer Hans-Hermann Weyer. Especially since he himself was not free from airs and graces, a social climber who earned a noble name by being adopted by a Countess of Yorck. The entrepreneur, born in Berlin in 1938, was in a way a wholesaler of vanity. He had a keen sense of the needs of a nouveau riche clientele, who often had everything except noble origins or the feeling of having really arrived.
Basically, the title dealer Weyer, known in the 1970s as “the beautiful Consul”, was a philanthropist, he just liked anyone who paid him well. South America was a focus of his special economy, and it made no difference to him whether the states with which he cooperated for the awarding of titles in the service of his clients were governed democratically, by a junta or a dictator. A title is a title, and the term “honorary consul” had a very unique ring to it with Weyer, the fees for his friendship services were sometimes considerable.
Whether he actually had 450 million on the edge, like him in 2019 the Evening News told? In any case, it would not have made the Forbes list of the richest Germans, but he always gave the impression of being part of an elite circle of insiders. This kind of society, which celebrates the aloof in an entertaining way and lives hedonism completely carefree, has almost disappeared. Half fictional character and half reality, Consul Weyer was definitely one of the last great representatives.
Many of his interviews today sound fairytale-like, almost like something from another time. On the other hand, it is easy to imagine that so many people with a thirst for recognition wanted to pay so much to belong, whether as a doctor, baron, count or consul. Even if Weyer had a down-to-earth side. After all, he was with the doctor Christina Weyer for 33 years, a jet set couple of the old school, flamboyant and extremely extroverted, they commuted between their main residence on Copacabana, selected Mediterranean destinations and Lake Tegernsee. “My husband is as well known as a Persil brand – he no longer needs PR for himself”, this assessment of his wife does not necessarily want to be contradicted.
Hans-Hermann Weyer in 1999 with his wife Christina. The couple were together for 33 years.
(Photo: Pohlmann/Imago/Brigani Art)
Maybe that’s exactly what made it so charming: absolute immodesty. Weyer himself sometimes flirted with the fact that as a child at the boarding school he was the poorest student of all, his father was still a Russian prisoner of war, his mother had to spend every penny and then married a British officer. Apparently it was his stepfather who paved the way for him to become a broker. But like much in his biography, this also remains vague. A life like a constant triumphal procession, that’s how it sounded in his stories, for which talk shows and people magazines loved him. An excursion into politics with the German Freedom Party (DFP), for which he even positioned himself as a candidate for chancellor, remained more of an episode, if not to say a farce. Weyer even caused unrest in his own party when he posed with a bare-breasted girl on Sylt.
Now the man who perfected the vanity business has died in Rio de Janeiro after a short illness.