The Grandfather of Warren Buffett: The forgotten stock market pioneer

He was the son of a butcher from Eisleben, attended grammar school in Sondershausen, East Germany, and became the very first stock market pioneer in Germany: Far ahead of his time, Hermann Zickert, born in 1885, is considered the founder of modern financial market analysis. The tools he designed are used by analysts from Warren Buffett to large hedge funds to this day.

Zickert was not only a innovator in financial thinking, but also a man with clear principles. The German stock market pioneer, who did his doctorate in Heidelberg and later founded the trade journal "Spiegel der Wirtschaft", did not want anyone to take over his ideas. Before Hitler took power, he fled the "severe psychological pressure" (Zickert) at home to Liechtenstein in order to "gain a freer, broader view".

In 1936 the Nazis banned the distribution of his magazine in Germany. Zickert had previously made fun of the economic forecasts of the major economic research institutes and predicted Hitler's command economy would fail: "If such large institutes fail so thoroughly in their research results," he wrote, "what must the planned economy look like that is based on such truths builds up!"

Survived in exile

Zickert survived the WW2 in his exile. Later with his paper and his teachings he became an advisor to the first generation of small private investors, to whom he explained how long-term investing can open the way to a financially secure future even for those who buy shares with small amounts.

Hermann Zickert preached again and again in his books that the stock market was not the quick mark, the stock market was more primarily patience. A message that some people have forgotten today, while most others still seem to have missed it. Far more Germans still play the lottery than invest in stocks. They are really convinced that they can win where the chances are negligible, while they believe that they will only lose money where Zickert had already taught that perseverance always leads to profit.

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