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Germany: The discreet lives of the super rich | DW Documentary

May 30, 2021
Germany's

super

rich

no other European country has so many billionaires and while their fortunes grow more and more Germans live below the poverty line established by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the OECD press frequently reports on the high inequality of income of the country and the low social mobility, but little is known about the

super

rich

sure that money attracts success and success attracts money. I think I've experienced for myself how you can suddenly connect with people who were previously out of your reach and they are the super rich of Germany. How they live? see the country they live in in the way the rich are talked about in Germany bothers me because it is sensationalist and sycophantic and in no way reflects what the rich have done and continue to do for this country, it creates the impression that the rich The rich are like Scrooge McDuck who have these containers of money in which they roll around in their coins.
germany the discreet lives of the super rich dw documentary
We wanted to get closer to the

discreet

world of Germany's ultra-rich, business owners and heirs worth millions. We wanted to discover what motivates those who are on top of the world every year An exclusive event is being held at the Schloss Hotel Kroenberg near Frankfurt to which the public is not invited. It's Business Monthly Manager magazine's annual Hall of Fame evening. Hardly any other occasion in Germany attracts so many wealthy businessmen. Dear presenters. Dear members of the jury, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the manager magazine hall of fame when we first founded the hall of fame in 1992, we wanted to stand for excellence and unconditional entrepreneurship and against timidity and averageness, today we begin our nominations with ralph domamut, his company United Internet.
germany the discreet lives of the super rich dw documentary

More Interesting Facts About,

germany the discreet lives of the super rich dw documentary...

He is valued at around 11 billion and on our list of the richest people in Germany he is ranked 25th with a personal wealth of 4.5 billion euros. Altogether the guests at this elegant evening are worth billions of euros. He is the face of wealth in Germany, mainly male, and although we here are close to the super-rich, his world is still out of our reach. Hamburg, headquarters of the parent company of the manager magazine, the Spigo group. Almost no publication closely follows the ultra-rich of

germany

every year the magazine team collects information about rich germans and uses the forbes model makes a special edition with a list of the 1001 richest people in

germany

it is a meticulous job how many billionaires are there 180 190 last year it was 136 correct no last year it was around 170. 170 well you need to have around 100 million that doesn't have to be money in the bank, most people have it as an asset or as property, but that is the ballpark we are looking for be on our list of the richest Germans.
germany the discreet lives of the super rich dw documentary
Editor-in-chief Stephen Klusman has been close to Germany's ultra-rich for years. What does it take to achieve it? on the list, I would say that the top 150 places on our list will always be for business owners and heirs, even if you are a chief doctor, you will need a lot of patience to become a billionaire. Managers also have a It's hard to get that high here in Germany, there's a debate about whether bosses at Dax companies earn too much, but if you compare it to what people in similar positions earn in the US, UK or China, are misery, so that alone can never do.
germany the discreet lives of the super rich dw documentary
Becoming one of the truly ultra-rich vans Creating a list of the richest people is especially difficult in Germany, although not because there aren't enough of them. Somehow he managed to amass this huge empire and fortune in just a few years. His wealth is estimated. to have around 4 billion, he is the least known super rich. Would they let us interview him at home? They prefer to go unnoticed to avoid envy. The super-rich don't like to reveal, so to speak, these home stories. Yes, normally you can only. get in-house interviews with second tier people, there you will always find guys who enjoy publicity like Mr.
Marshmallow and stuff like that. Getting a good photo of Mr. Marshmeyer is never a problem, but the real money is kept hidden, the super rich try. to go unnoticed sometimes they even try to hide there are no photos of several people on our list you will not find a single photo if you go online and search for them on google there has not been a photo of hyman german is rich's family for decades many remain hidden because they want to live a normal life and think they won't be able to if it is known that they are billionaires for months our interview requests were rejected the agreed upon film sheets were canceled at the last minute none of the rich wanted to talk to us about money we finally had luck in the financial center of Frankfurt Here, in a prime location, hidden behind the bank towers, is the asset management company 4com that manages the fortunes of German business families.
Its president, Christian van Bechthelzheim, gave us insight into why Germans are rich. They are so shy that many rich Germans are reluctant to go out into public because they fear that they might be seen negatively. They wonder what I gain by showing myself to the public. I don't care. A crazy man who takes note and breaks into my house or kidnaps me could lead to something. one of my children, and those fears are not unjustified, there is also the fact that many heirs are inheriting fortunes that are somehow tainted or related to the third right that avoids the upper echelon of wealthy Germans. advertising like it were the plague, but what are they so afraid of?
I asked several of my friends if they would like to be interviewed for this film and each one said no, they would say someone else can do it better than me. I can't get it right and I might be wrong. They believe they would have much more to lose than gain after much back and forth with this press team. An ultra-rich German agreed to meet with us. Michael Otto is the president. from the supervisory board of the otto group and one of the 10 richest germans we asked him why germans are reluctant to show their wealth; They fear that doing so would create envy in the US.
Achievements and wealth are seen in a very positive light, but here they have a bitter aftertaste of where their fortune comes from or how they got their wealth. Poor mother had a small pharmacy in Hannover. After the war, his son had bigger plans. In 1972, the idea of ​​opening the first self-service pharmacy in Germany came to him today. He is a billionaire. Why was he happy to be the center of attention in the early years? It was simply about getting the name out there. So when I was invited to a talk show on a small regional channel, I liked going because I thought about free publicity for my company, but two or three years ago I began to understand that this bald, slightly flabby man whose teeth are not perfect had hunger for recognition.
At the time I thought he was appearing in the spotlight to promote the company, but y'all. rationalizes his motives and so did I in 40 years crosman became the most profitable pharmacy chain in europe with stores in six countries in 2018 a total of 56,000 people worked in the chain rossmann is also active in other business areas and speculates On the stock market, the largest, it is valued between 80 and 100 million, depending on the exchange rate, so it is a fair sum. There are also stocks in different industries. It would be boring with 55,000 employees. You are no longer a medium-sized company.
You are in another. league we return to the Hamburg manager magazine where photographs are selected for a special issue the list of the richest Germans includes a notably high number of business owners of so-called medium-sized businesses it is a German peculiarity and is not the only cover story of this number is that money rained down on Germany's super-rich last year. Here we have the shepherds, the matriarch and her son, who now owns eighty percent. Mom has only kept the twenty. Shepherds have been at the top of our list for many years, I would have to check exactly how much they are worth but around 20 billion or so here we have the head of the Henkel clan, she is the first and so far only female president of the supervisory board of one of the 30 dax companies germany's economy is still extremely male dominated what's interesting is that if you compare our list here with a list of the ultra rich in the united states, we have a lot of old companies money that have existed for decades in the us, you have all those guys from facebook, google, snapchat and so on who have reached the top of the list, we don't have that kind of thing and here, with other countries, the Germans are very reticent when it comes to showing their wealth, very few Germans sail there.
On ships like this they are usually American, Russian, Chinese, etc. here you don't really show your money, you may have several houses, villas and such, but there is probably a Volkswagen parked in front, it seems that the average ultra-rich German rarely attracts attention, unlike in the United States, the Athletes, actors and television personalities rarely appear on the German list. Although we put a lot of love and sweat into estimating these fortunes, they are probably much higher, especially if we are talking about urban real estate where prices have skyrocketed. In the last 10 years many people have doubled their real estate assets, so if we start with 5 billion in that market it is likely that today we will have 10 or 15 billion, money makes money, but while the fortunes of the German rich are have skyrocketed since the financial crisis due to the increase in the value of stocks and real estate assets, those with middle incomes have had to take losses, even liberal economics institutes are concerned about social inequality in Germany, how do the super-rich see this disparity?, the big change in that topic, the newspaper headline. says: the rich are getting richer, which is true, the rich are getting richer, yes it is true, but it is also false, there are 20 million citizens in Germany who have assets worth between 100 000 and 1 million, so millions of people are getting richer now, the rich.
They are getting richer even faster because one factor is that they can probably spend a lot more time growing their wealth. The left party would probably say they divide their wealth, but my answer is that I also do things for the world in which I live. Don't just take it, I'm not a socialist, although I can only do things because I have things. Michael Otto is one of the rich. His wealth has increased. He successfully transferred his mail order business to a digital company. More than 20 companies now belong to the otto group. We wanted to know how Otto sees the debate about rich and poor.
Do the rich understand the concerns of the poor when people talk about those at the top not understanding those at the bottom? I wouldn't say that applies to me, this is because I wasn't born rich. I arrived in Hamburg as a refugee from West Prussia and my father had to start from scratch. That's why I absolutely understand people who live in poverty today. On the other hand, I would also say that Germany is growing more and more. more millionaires, that is, people with small or medium-sized businesses, because usually the millionaires in question built a business that they now run, so I think that's great because they are the people who create jobs for me, that's what should matter in this debate that we should focus on.
That and not rich versus poor, I'm right, ensuring that the wealth of rich families can increase despite the current zero interest rates is the mission of Christian von Best Health Science Company, every day he and his employees send out opportunities for investment from banks and other entities. Exclusively to your rich clients This is a way of presenting an offer to only a handful of valuable clients and friends, is it fair that rich Germans can increase their wealth while the rest of the population is left behind? I think it is difficult to apply the terms. Like equity and justice in the distribution of wealth, I would say that here in Germany we are better off than ever and people here live in above-average circumstances.
However, we have to ensure that the gap between rich and poor does not widen too much. wide because we do not want social conflicts to occur like in the US or Latin America. Here there is a so-called multi-family office. Family officials take care of the needs of very rich families, manage and increase their assets, it only makes sense to use them. family offices if your assets exceed 30 million euros, who can afford something like that? This is a mess and, well, a family office like ours obviously can't talk about its clients, we have well-known German business families, that's our typical client profile, someone who or owned a company and thinks differently than someone who have spent their life as an employee or are families that have had money for a long time so wealth is so to speak in their genes and then there are families that have just acquired wealth thatThey are still pumping out entrepreneurial energy.
A lot of this entrepreneurial energy. His company is McFit. The largest gym chain in Europe. His headquarters are in a former bakery factory in Berlin. Reiner Schaller started out small but today his wealth is valued at 250 million euros. I was born. near Bomback and I grew up in a small town normally in towns you play the sports available and when I was around 1516 my role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone, that's how I got into the world of fitness. Schaller went from high school to complete a sales apprenticeship and became the manager of three supermarkets then decided to start something new when I was 25 I decided to move into the fitness industry my idea was to open a gym where anyone could train regardless his income that was the initial idea and he had big goals he wanted to be number one in Europe but that was all he had he had no financing uh okanggild it was 1997 when shala opened his first gym in Würzburg, near his hometown, he made use of some unusual methods and I opened my first gym under the motto now also in Würzburg, where people saw it as a marketing joke because clients came to me and asked me where else we had studios, so I thought about it a little and it soon occurred to me the next marketing joke that worked and also got me on track to go from würzburg to erlangen and then grew from there ten years later reiner schaller reached his goal, he is number one in europe and still expanding.
Mcfit now owns 10 fitness companies and his own modeling agency, while Chana is preparing to open fitness studios in the US. Being number one is much easier than staying number one. I think if you want to be successful you need to be a bit of an alpha animal inside. The investor would probably pick a brand and say, "Okay, that could work." I like it, although it's probably two steps. too far for many, but if someone does not want to get involved with us because of that, I am convinced that they will have an easier time if they have fought their way to the top and to success, clients feel it and partners too.
I think that's our situation, so I can also imagine that someone who inherits something or takes over or even has to take over a company in the second or third generation will have it much more difficult, but in germany there are many heirs, Great fortunes and thousands of companies have passed from one generation to another. There are heirs who do not want to and others who should not take over their parents' companies. The succession is very important among the richest in Germany. Michael Otto inherited the retail company. mail from his father and I did it successfully, but it will be more difficult for my children because now the Otto group has 123 companies in more than 30 countries.
I know each and every company, either because I was involved when it was founded or because I led the acquisition negotiation, but my children do not. However, I know of the many companies that Otto's children have opted for direct succession. I think it's important to give your children a choice without pressuring them so as not to force them into a role. I think that mistake is made a lot and I would say it's bad for both the kids and the company, so now we have a selling point. Are you a little tired? Yes, it's been an exhausting couple of days in 10 minutes.
I'll be fine again. It was just bam bam bam bam boom boom boom deer crossman spent too. After a long time considering who would be his successor, it has now been decided that Raúl Rossmann, the youngest of his two sons, will take over as manager of the pharmacy chain. Well, do we really sell much yarn? Not exactly part of a pharmacy's range. The trend is over. It was big in 2016, was already fading in 2017, and has plateaued in 2018, but it's not the worst product we have and it still generates some revenue. Rail's father had to show him the appeal of being in charge when the boys became more committed, I thought. oh, now we can't give the impression that the pharmacy business is just about making money, so I showed them that we are all so active in social issues in Africa and so on.
I have always shown my children that what we do is not only about making money it is also about being responsible for others when I was a child I wanted to be a film director that was always my dream and it still is today you might be thinking no , I don't want him to be a director, I want him in the company. So I said, "Well, go ahead and become a director, but being a director of such a big company is also exciting. I manipulated it a little. I am often asked if I feel competitive with my father and I'm sure he built this great company that I.
I'll just take over but it's very difficult to maintain anything these days. The founding period has its own challenges and just having the idea of ​​founding a pharmacy self-service was enormously innovative, but the fight to survive has become more difficult and that's the only one. I'm in everyone in my family wants to be good at sports. My father and I fight against each other in tennis. We all compete against each other. us and that also shaped our view of life or mine, at least despite their competitiveness, the Rosman family achieved harmony. I agree regarding the succession normally I prefer to play doubles that is much more appropriate for men my age I am starting to worry a little about you you worry about me well with your inheritance I wouldn't worry I would be looking forward to select The airs and the successes no They are usually as friendly as in the rider's house.
Christian van Bechterszeim has seen many inheritance disputes in wealthy families. His job is to preserve family assets and protect them from all kinds of dangers and for merchants to maintain a family fortune for several generations. It's incredibly difficult because he is under threat of being divided by inheritance, by wealth disputes, by expropriation by war, or simply by stupidity. One or all of these things will happen to most families. Only a handful of families have managed to stay more or less afloat. centuries but the ones at the top have been changed time and time again he speaks from personal experience his own family history goes back 900 years I have a terribly long name at least on my birth certificate there are my six first names christian lotan ludwig hugo wilhelm and maria as a good catholic followed by barron von mauchenheim gnant bechteltheim but at work they usually call me mister von bechtel's heim and at social events baron or lord baron baron von bechtelsheim is an indirect successor of the figures the richest family in the german history when wealth begins For you, if you ask me at what point I consider someone to be truly rich, I would say that in a hundred seconds I am definitely not rich.
I was joking, but I'm comfortable and our family is comfortable and I'm certainly not complaining. when you have a family history as long as mine your family has seen everything come close to bankruptcy years full of money and years in which much was lost takes us to the Baytorsheim family hunting lodge in Turingan it seemed as if the lodge had been destroyed lost forever During the division of Germany, the house was built in 1892 as a hunting lodge for my great-great-grandparents. It has been in the family ever since, except for a brief interval; it was expropriated in 1952 and then restored in 1992.
And since then he has owned it. The family's hunting lodge survived the expropriation and socialism today without great damage. day in Beitharsheim also owns hundreds of hectares of forest in the surrounding area and regularly invites his business acquaintances to hunt. A recurring theme in the special issues of Manager magazine is the networks of the super-rich there are larger and smaller networks and There are many of them and most of them not even we, journalists, know about. In high society there are certain typical pastimes. Horse racing. Hockey. A little tennis. That's almost old school though. They meet in the boxes at important football games. stadiums because of course everyone is a football fan, football is huge, a lot of networking is done there, it's like their market, they mix and meet there more than at the so-called parties for the rich, we always have a lot of employees here, we have a lot of friends in the box because today jim fifa, the most famous criminologist in germany, is here sometimes someone from politics comes christian wolf and bettina are part of my close circle of friends so there are always a lot of things to do here in berlin reiner schaller is opening a new club a new branch of his fitness empire, superficial, he has also become a member of the network of important people from the sports business and entertainment industries.
Surely money attracts success and success attracts money. I think I've experienced for myself how you can suddenly connect with people. previously out of my reach i'm in a different position here ah dear crossman is ready to leave his box he wants to celebrate the victory with his friend billionaire and headphone company owner martin kint kint is also co-owner and president of hanover 96. his box It is located at the other end of the exclusive VIP area I told you we would win today I told him that if we didn't win I would pay 10 million that was the right bet I never said that yes, here we have The networks of two half-decent men are important for business, but Do the rich also have political influence?
Can you buy political influence in Germany? The best way available for the rich or super-rich in Germany to exert influence is the number of employees working in their companies. Someone who owns a company with a hundred thousand employees or let's say less, maybe 15,000 employees can go to business associations and say but that's going to cost me or an even better argument is that it's going to cost 2,000 jobs in that company. area but there are no super rich people who regularly call ministers or Mrs Merkel and tell them what needs to happen next, what tax laws they would like etc., that's not how things work here in Germany, the deadline for the special issue is coming up.
The ranking of the 1001 richest Germans. What do the rich think of this ranking? It is a ranking synthesizer. Those rankings are for entertainment. They are sometimes compiled using stock market quotes, but they are not reliable in any real sense. I don't think much. of these rankings and I didn't want to be included because it creates the impression that the rich are like scrooge mcduck and have these bins of money where they wallow in the fact that I'm at the top of the rankings, including the Most Germans Rich people make me proud. I read Manager magazine from time to time.
One of them is that Rhinoceros now wants to open the world's largest fitness center in North Rhine-Westphalia. Let me ride the Mirai. It is Japanese and means the future we believe in. It fits perfectly with the whole concept and vision because what we want to create here is truly unique and has never been done before. Our goal is to become the world's fitness center. Schaller believes he has found the perfect place to realize his vision in Oberhausen. He rented an old factory complex, at the moment the space is still used to manufacture steel parts, but before long thousands of clients will exercise here, the emergency exit path will be here and the office is at the top.
He experienced his most traumatic experience to date in In 2010, 21 people were killed and 54 injured in a stampede during the love parade in Duisburg. Shulla had been the organizer of the parade. The cause of the panic has not yet been conclusively determined. How does a fast-track businessman deal with these types of situations? tragedy, an event like that will always haunt you for the rest of your life. I have a moral responsibility. I was the organizer. If I could turn back time I would do so immediately with the scale of what happened, but you can't do that. undo you have to try to deal with what happened there were also setbacks and crises in the 90s we expanded dramatically into the czech republic, hungary and poland I was also speculating too much in the stock markets and neglecting the company, then in 1996 suddenly I had a loss of 12 million German marks.
The banks aren't kidding if you're deep in debt and then you suffer huge losses, which was critical and then I had a heart attack in '96. But everyone knows life can get tough. and things got very difficult back then, so I backed off a bit, including speculating in stocks, sold them all and thought that the only thing I had on the table now was to get my husband's pharmacy business going and that it was the right decision to focus on one thing and not do so many different things he came out of that crisis stronger he never started speculating again but he assures us that just with his private wealth I don't have a laptop, I normally do this through ntv text 254. it says gas problem here, is it 375?
I could sell them now. I bought 250,000 of those, so 250,000 times 20 cents would give me 50,000 euros profit, but I won't sell them. I think it will go up to four euros. Sometimes it works,sometimes not, but I enjoy it, that's why I don't play the lottery because I find it boring that a great fortune is also a burden. I would say that for most people, although they wouldn't voluntarily give away their money, for example, they will move to Switzerland or somewhere to save on taxes and give up their entire circle of friends and basically become a slave to their fortune, in my opinion opinion, that is absurd considering the conditions we currently have in Germany, the conditions in Germany are currently more favorable than ever for the rich who pay. significantly lower taxes than 25 years ago only a minority still feels obliged to emigrate abroad article 14 of the German constitution states that property carries obligations its use must also serve the public good if the rich in Germany fulfill this responsibility I think that It is important if you are successful if you are lucky enough to have achieved a certain level of prosperity and wealth to give something back to society for me that is a fact Michelle Otto is one of Germany's largest donors her money helps fund the cultural environment and social sectors such as the majority of the rich prefer to decide themselves what they spend their money on instead of leaving it in the hands of the state otto such as many rich Germans donated millions for the construction of the ed philharmonie in Hamburg in Germany the rich like to donate and this is important contributions to society and public life, but in general they are against the proposal to redistribute wealth through higher taxes for the rich, German and foreign cinema, if German companies would give in to all demands of, say, Ms.
Wagenknecht to the left party, then millions of people would be happy and things would be good for a while because millions of people would have more money, I know, but a true redistribution of wealth has never led to a greater social justice in the long term, nor in any of the political systems that attempted it. led to the impoverishment of these countries. Christians consider higher taxes on the rich dangerous. I don't think much about this so-called tax on the rich for two reasons, firstly, the terminology alone is stigmatizing and we in Germany should avoid that and, secondly, the tax on the rich would be of no use;
On the contrary, it would affect the backbone of the German economy because the typical rich German owns a medium-sized company. They make up the backbone of the German economy and if we want to destroy that we have no one to blame but ourselves, the special issue is ready things have basically stayed the same the rich have a few billion more the one percent more Rich Germans now have personal wealth worth a quarter of the country's assets, while a quarter of adults have no wealth or are in debt. For this report, we never had access to the world of the richest Germans, they prefer to fly quietly under the radar, away from the public eye until the next awards ceremony.

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