 His father, a middle class businessman, lived in Vienna at the time and died there in 1941.In 1949 his mother remarried to Cornelius Johann Heinrich Hellmuth von Berenberg-Gossler, a member of the prominent Hanseatic Berenberg-Gossler banking family.Hans-Joachim Consbruch, as he was known until 1976, studied law and then embarked on a career in the bank owned by his step-father's relatives.