W. Geminis super rich no other european country has as many billionaires and while their fortunes are growing more and more germans are living under the poverty line set by the organization for Economic Cooperation and development the o. E. C. D. The press frequently reports on the countrys high income inequality and low social mobility but little is known about the super rich the truth see it sure money attracts success and success attracts money that i do believe that ive experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach for a kind of shows how to. Geminis superwealthy how do they live and how do they see the country they live in. With the way wealthy people in germany. Talked about bothers me because it sensationalizes him sycophantic and in no way reflects what wealthy people have done and continue to do for this country for this long. But the only creates this impression of rich people being like Scrooge Mcduck that they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. And Scrooge Mcduck wants more more more thats not what world minded are like earning money for us but not swimming it because. We wanted to get closer to the discreet world of germanys ultra rich of Company Owners and as with millions we wanted to find out what makes those on top of the world take. Every year an exclusive event takes place in the schlosser corn back in the a friend feds to which the public is not invited. Its the annual hall of fame evening for the business monthly manager magazine. Any other occasion in germany joins as many wealthy business as. The again. Steamed presenters did jury members steer ladies and gentlemen welcome to manager magazines whole effect. When we 1st founded the hall of fame in 1902 we wanted to take a stand for excellence and unconditional entrepreneurship and against faint hearted ness and averageness. We begin our nominations today with a moment and his Company United internet is valued at around 11000000000 and on our list of germanys richest people you rank 25th with a personal wealth of 4500000000 euros for months once they hit feel like me are. Collectively the guests at this elegant evening are worth billions of euros. This is the face of wealth in germany main email and although were close to the super rich here their world remains somehow out of reach. Hamburg home to manage a magazines Parent Company the Speaker Group hardly any publication keeps close a tabs on germanys ultra rich every year the magazines team gathers information on wealthy germans and using the forbes model makes a special edition with a list of germanys 1001 richest people. Its painstaking work. Close to them how many billionaires are video of a 481. 00 the 190. 00 noids last year was 136. 00 right no last year it was around 17170. 00 ok there is someone who wants to get on our list of 1001 richest germans needs to have around 100000000 with their cash and quite as in have to be money in the bank most people have it is assets or is property but thats the ballpark were looking for to be on our list of the richest germans the bison. Continent to devise an. Editor in chief stephan close one has been around germanys ultra wealthy for years. What does it take to get on the list. The top id say that the top 150 spots on our list will always go to Company Owners and asses even if youre a chief physician youll need to see a whole lot of patients to become a billionaire many managers also have a hard time getting that high up here in germany theres a debate about whether the head surtax company is too much of an index i think but if you compare it to what people in similar posts in the u. S. The u. K. Or china its peanuts for the law and also tanya and heena so that alone cant ever make you one of the truly ultra rich. Doesnt. Creating a list of the wealthiest people is especially difficult in germany theyre not because there arent enough of them and. Thats when people try to somehow manage to amass this huge empire and fortune in just a few years its over his wealth is estimated to be around 4000000000 hes the least known super rich germans in the home to get his interview him at home. They prefer to fly under the radar to avoid envy by any means the super rich dont like to help themselves so to speak. Out of the. Home stories here you can normally only get interviews inside the homes with 2nd tier ones of you there you always get guys who get a kick out of publicity. Like mr marsh mile in search. Getting a good shot of mr maschmeyer is never a problem. But the real money keeps itself had to be guilty as this has to hurt. The super rich will try. To go unnoticed sometimes i even try to hide there are no photos of several people on our list and you wont find a single picture if you go online and google them because there hasnt been a photo of her hymen sites germanys richest family for decades and for so many stay hidden because they want to live normal lives and think that they wont be able to do so if theyre known to be multibillionaire yeah. New haven can for months interview requests were rejected agreed film sheets were cancelled last minute none of the rich wanted to talk to us about money. Finally we got lucky and the financial her friend face here in a prime location tucked behind the bank teller as City Asset Management company full come full can manage his german business families fortunes. Its chairman kristin fanbase the time provided some insight as to why rich germans also shine. Detroit if you know many wealthy germans are reluctant about stepping out into the public eye because theyre afraid they could be seen negatively. They ask themselves what do i get from showing myself to the public it doesnt give me anything on the contrary it could lead to some crazy person taking notice and breaking into my home or kidnapping one of my children. And those fears are not unwarranted. But then theres also the fact that many errors are inheriting fortunes that are somehow tainted by or related to the 3rd reich. The upper tier of rich germans avoids the blysse as if it were the play. What are they so afraid of. The. I asked a number of my friends whether theyd like to be interviewed for this film and each one said no they say its. Someone else can do that better than me i cant do it right and i might come across wrong if they think theyd have much more to lose than to gain the 1st few courses this was given come. After a loss of back and forth with this pristine one ultra rich german did agree to meet us Michelle Cottle is the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the auto critic and one of the 10 richest germans. We asked him why and germans are reluctant to show off their wealth. If you do you can fool any wiring or doing so would lead to envy in the us achievement and wealth are seen in a highly positive way. But here they carry a bitter aftertaste where does his fortune come from or how did he get his wealth that scares some off to the shore and once you buy fuel i think a lot of people find their own welfare little nauseating. I dont at all i like it mr scott when he. Did cost money grew up poor his mother ran a small drug store and postal had after his son had bigger plans and 972. 00 the idea of opening the 1st selfservice drug store in germany came to him today hes a multimillionaire why was he happy to step into the spotlight. And thanks to the in the early years it was just about getting the name rossman on there. Was so when i was invited to a talk show on a small regional channel like going to because i thought free publicity for my company or negated by the film. But then 2 or 3 years ago i started to understand that this slightly flabby balding man who has teeth arent perfect but was hungry for recognition himself. Back then i thought i was stepping into the limelight to promote the company but everyone rationalizes their motives. And i did this. Within 40 years became the most profitable drugstore chain in europe with stores in 6 countries. In 2018 a total of 56000 people were working on the chain. Osman is active in other business areas as well and he speculates on the stock market. I need. My work couple of private Equity Investments the largest israel europe between 80 and 100000000 depending on the stock so its a fair sum there are also shares in Different Industries it would definitely be poor. Little. Venue if youre still referred to as n s m e because small Medium Enterprise why do you think thats so. I dont really know. With 55000 employees youre not really a Medium Enterprise anymore youre in another league. Were back at manager magazine in hand. With a special issue of being selected. A list of the richest germans includes a notably high number of company otherness from the socalled medium sized businesses. Its a german peculiarity and its not the only one. Cover story for this Current Issue is that last year money rained down on germanys super rich. But he said up here we have the chef lowers the matriarch and her son who now owns 80 percent mom has kept only 20 scheffler subpoena the top of our list for many many years i would have to check exactly how much theyre worth but around 20000000000 give or take a bit. Down here we have mr barger old trafford in the head of the henkel clan shes the 1st and so far only woman chairman of the Supervisory Board of one of the 30 dax companies. Germanys economy is still extremely male dominated whats interesting is if you compare our list here with a list of the ultra rich in the us if we have a lot of old money Old Companies that have been around for decades in the u. S. You have all those lands from Facebook Google snapchat and so forth that have bubbled up to the top of the list we dont have that type of thing here. And compared with other countries germans are very reticent about showing their wealth. Very few germans sail around in boats like this. Usually thats americans russians chinese and so on ones like hey you dont really show your money you might have various houses villas and such but theres likely to be a compact out front of. It seems the average ultra wealthy german israeli conspicuous unlike in the u. S. Athletes actors and t. V. Personalities rarely make it onto the german list. Even though we put a great deal of his love and sweat into estimating his fortunes are probably much bigger than the tide is specially if were talking about going real estate prices have exploded over the past 10 years a lot of people have doubled their Property Assets so if you started with 5000000000 in that market youre likely to have 10 or 15000000000 today its enough of them. Money makes money but well rich germans fortunes have exploded since the financial crisis due to the increase in value of real estate stocks and assets those with average incomes have had to swallow losses. Even liberal economics institutes are concerned about social inequality in germany how do the super rich see this disparity. Tied to. A headline in the newspaper reads the rich are getting richer and richer which is true the rich are getting richer yes its true but its also false. There are 20000000 citizens in germany who have assets worth between 100001 1000000. So millions of people are getting richer. Now the rich are getting richer even faster because one factor is probable they can dedicate much more time to increasing their wealth but for the fall the ugly times arent cashed up the left party would likely say split up your wealth but my response is i also do things for the world which i live and i dont just take or im not a socialist. I can only do things because i have things. I think of but how the. Auto is one of the great his wealth has increased he successfully transitioned his mail order business into a Digital Enterprise over 20 companies now belong to the us a group. We wanted to know how to see is the debates about rich and poor. Do the rich understand the worries of the poor. And. When people talk about those on top who dont understand those at the bottom i wouldnt say that applies to me. Because i was not born rich i came to hamburg as a refugee from west prashant and my father had to start from scratch on my father out of. Thats why i absolutely do understand People Living in poverty today. On the other hand id also say that if germany is getting more and more millionaires many people with small or medium sized businesses because generally the millionaires in question who did build a business they now run then i think thats great. Then thats a look because theyre the people creating jobs for me thats what should matter in this debate we should focus on that and not rich versus poor right it is. Ensuring that the wealth of rich families can increase despite current 0 Interest Rates is the mission of christan fund company. And that. Would be. Each day he and his employees send out Investment Opportunities from banks and other entities given exclusively to his wealthy clients and that this is a way to present an offer to just a handful of valued clients and focus on this leaders and that you. Know theres a 3rd. And that rich germans are able to increase their wealth while the rest of the population gets left behind. The biggest to get they think its difficult to apply terms like equity and fairness to the distribution of wealth and i would say that here in germany were better off than ever before and people here living above average circumstances like nonetheless we have to make sure the gap between rich and poor doesnt get too wide because we dont want social conflicts like in the us or latin america to happen here in america. From based on Times Company people come is a socalled multifamily Office Family office has take care of the needs of very wealthy families managing and increasing their assets it only makes sense to use Family Offices if your wealth is up would of 30000000 euros who can afford such a thing. As. This is causing well over a Family Office like ours and obviously cant discuss its clients so we have well known german business families thats our typical client profile. Someone who we were was a Company Owner thinks differently to someone who has spent their life is going to tell you. More they are families who have had money for a long time so wealth is so to speak in their genes. Is that. For me and then there are families who have just come into their wealth who are still pumping with Entrepreneurial Energy theyre usually quite different from heirs. For. Hina seems to have plenty of this Entrepreneurial Energy his company is max fit europes largest Fitness Studio chain. Its head courses are in an all baking factory in berlin. Started off small but today his wealth is valued at 200. 00. And there from by i was born near bombay up in a small village normally in villages you do the sports available and when i was around 1516 my role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and stallone so i came to the fitness world for my son i went from Secular School to computer salesman apprenticeship and became the many tales 3 supermarkets then he decided to start something new. For the for me. When i was 25 this by decided to switch to the Fitness Industry my idea was to open a gym where anyone could train no matter his or her income god that was the initial idea and i had big goals i wanted to be number one in europe but thats all i had i didnt have financing. It was 997 when china opened his 1st Fitness Studio inverts book close to his home village he made use of some unusual methods. On the monitor it was a big step for me i opened my 1st business studio there under the slogan now also inverts book which people saw through as a marketing gag because customers came to me and asked where else we had studios so i gave it some thought and came up with the next marketing gag soon also in atlanta to get people that did the job and also put me on track to going from both blog to and then it grew from there. 10 years later i shall have reached his goal hes number one in europe and still expanding. Mexico now owns 10 Fitness Companies as well as its own model agency. Meanwhile china is getting ready to open a Fitness Studios in the u. S. Is getting to be number one. Its 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 all. The investor would probably pick a brand and say ok that could work i like it although its probably 2 steps too far for many. But if someone doesnt want to get involved with us because of it so what. So what you can do it so i. Think an offense that you have an easier time if you want your way to the top and to success. Clients below it and so to partners. I think thats our situation over distance but which is why i can also imagine that someone who inherits something or takes over or even has to take over a company in the 2nd or 3rd generation will have a much tougher time and was of a serious. But there are plenty of s. In germany huge fortunes and thousands of companies have been passed from one generation to the next. There are areas who dont want to and others who shouldnt take over their parents businesses succession is hugely important among germanys richest men in harry said the male would accompany it from his father and successfully managed it. For money can there is this it will be harder for my children though because now the auto group has 123 companies in over 30 countries one of the lines france is with. Every Single Company either because i was involved when it was founded or because i let the take i have a negotiation for money can not my children dont yet know the Many Companies because. Us has children have opted against direct succession to. Be finished just when i think its important to give your children the option without pressuring them so you dont force them into a row i think that mistake is made often and id say its bad for both the children and the company. On the income. Put. His or her mama so now we have one point of sale. Are you a bit tired yes its one exhausting couple of days and its always in 10 minutes ill be fine a unit was just Bam Bam Bam Bam boom boom boom. Did cost money also spent a lot of time considering who his successor would be its now decided collars last month the younger of his 2. 00 sons will take over as manager of the drugstore chain. Do we actually sell much yarn its not exactly part of a drugstores or a trend sort of over it was big in 2016 already fading in 2017 and its been stagnating in 2018 but its not the worst product we have and it still brings in some revenue. And money. Father had to show him the appeal of being in charge. Then using when the boys got more engaged i thought oh no we cant look as if the drugstore business is only about making money so i showed them how were also active in social issues in africa and so forth im. After my always showed my sons their what we do isnt just about making money its also about being responsible for others about me in film mention. As a child i wanted to become a film director that was always my dream it still is today and how do you mean by good and then you might be thinking you know i dont want to be a director phil moment i want to run the company like that so i said i want to go ahead and become a director but being a director of such a big company is also exciting i did manipulate him a bit. As little as he could find often asked whether i feel competitive toward my father and sure he built up this big company that ill only take over but its really difficult to keep something going these days the founding period has its own challenges and just having. The idea of founding a selfservice drugstore was hugely innovative not succumbed but the fight to survive has gotten tougher and thats the one im in it. Has come also. Bought me everyone in my family wants to be good at sports you could my father and i battle each other in tennis. Well we all compete with one another. And thats also shaped our view of life or mine at least depict as a tremendous minor. Despite their competitiveness the last month family reached home only is agreement with regard to succession. As show that struggling against trouble wipes me out are normally prefer playing doubles thats much more appropriate for men my age i miss having it im starting to worry a bit about you you worry about me with your inheritance i wouldnt be looking forward to it. Selecting as an successes is usually not quite as amicable as at the hospice. To stand for time has seen many inheritance disputes in rich families its his job to preserve the familys assets and protected from all sorts of dangers. And from movements 100. 00 the maintaining a family fortune over several generations is incredibly difficult because its under threat from being divvied up through inheritance from well just humans from expropriation from wars or simply from stupidity its always in the most families will have one or all of these happen to them and only a handful of families have managed to stay more or less afloat over centuries but those right on top have been switched out again and again. These would remove the goals. From based on time speaks from personal experience his own familys history dates back 900 years so its long and i have a horribly long name at least on my birth certificate theres my 6 given names christiane lawton luke big villa him and maria as a good catholic followed by malcolm hi im best in time what it work im normally called mr fun best of the time and at social events baron. Or lord baron. Baron from base does time isnt in direct success some of the focus the richest family in germany history. Went as well to begin for you prince receives if youre asking me at what point i consider someone to be truly rich. I would say over a 100 yards. Up i mean christ really really all and its hard. If you could. Definitely not rich. But im comfortable you go in your family is comfortable because and im certainly not complaining in the long term when you have a Family History as long as im honest or your family has seen everything. Near bankruptcy. And yours overflowing with money. Inside and years when a lot was lost a lot more than. He takes us to the Hunting Lodge off the best time family in tilling and. It looks like the laws have been lost for ever tearing the division of germany. Assholes who are the us a house was built in 892 was a Hunting Lodge for my great great grandson calls. Its been in the family ever since except for a short interval. It was expropriated in 1952 and then restitute it in 1902 and since then ive owned it in mine and visits. The familys Hunting Lodge survived expropriation and socialism without much damage. Today from the time also and hundreds of pictures of forests nearby and regularly invites business acquaintances for hundreds. And also total fame many of the trophies or more was all i got several also come from my father. Im from my great grand uncle and leopard down there i didnt shoot him that was my great grand uncle who had been my dog chewed off his ears so he no longer has this former beauty and stickers for it but hes too precious not to keep it. As. A recurring topic in the special issues of the manager magazine other superwealthy is networks. There are larger and Smaller Networks and there are a lot of them and most even we journalists dont know about in high society there are certain typical hobbies that horse racing hockey but a tennis though thats almost all Schools School my tricycle meets in the boxes at major football stadiums because of course theyre all football fan a sense info police huge. Lots of networking happens there thats not their marketplace they mingle and meet them more than at socalled parties for the rich as of zubin and i think part. Of. That would. Have enough to do we always have a lot of employees here and we have a lot of friends in the box Christian Pfeiffers here today germanys most famous criminologist b. C. Im not sure its sometimes you may lurk for someone from politics comes by because turnbull from between are part of my closer girlfriends so theres always lots going on here i think its something new to be. Involved in the finest china is opening a new chapter a new branch of his fitness empire. Also has become a member in the network of important people from the sports business and intertainment industries. The only kind of visit that. I hope you see. Because listen this is true its a close circle thats hard to get into and im sure money attracts success and success attracts money i do believe that. The 5 experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach. I am in a different position to the 2 to sean future in the band. Was this i heard you probably think the one i have any all i want to do with a good laugh and a few. In san francisco. Thats all there is it gets bored. By god was. Declasse one is ready to leave his box he wants to celebrate the victory with his friend the billionaire and hearing aid Company Owner martin kindt. Kent is also co owner and president of kind of a 96 his box is located on the other end of the exclusive v. I. P. Area that i turn to were going to do that why did you do you know i told him that if we didnt win you pay 10000000 that was the bet all right that was my idea of it would have never served there yet here we have it to a half way decent 30 given up on the day after jeffords. Networks are important for business but do the rich also have political clout can political influence be pulled in germany. Stimuli the best way available for richer or super rich people in germany to exert influence is the number of employees working in a company as one its often happen of someone who owns a company with 100000 employees well lets say less maybe 15000 employees can go to Business Associations and say finding go ahead and pass that law school that that will cost me or an even better argument is that will cost you 2000 jobs in that area and jobs. But there are no super rich people who regularly call up the ministers or ms merkel and say what needs to happen next which tax laws like and so on thats not how things work here in germany france and it isnt pushing. It is someone of that statement and i was not this is not true when i stand by this technique classes this time the deadline for the special issue is approaching the heart of it is the ranking of the 1001 richest german the stores what do the rich think of this ranking. Their rankings in those rankings are for entertainment or scrape together sometimes using stock market. But they arent reliable in any real way and for. The giving of this interesting can also cost position and here i dont think much of these rankings and i didnt want to be included because it creates this impression of rich people being like Scrooge Mcduck they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. The fact that im at the top of the rankings including of the wealthiest germans does make me feel proud and finish no truly please its what i will read manager magazine every now and then but ive never read the rankings and i dont know whether im in it and i dont need that my brother goals. One of these is that hi michelle and now wants to open the Worlds LargestFitness Center in north rhinewestphalia. Arise japanese and means the future we think its a perfect fit for 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 worlds Fitness Center for the sense. Of things hes found the perfect location to realize his vision in. His rented an. Factory complex. At the moment the space is still being used to make steel pots. But before long thousands of customers will be exercising here. Magine c. X. Its path will be here new officers on top. Experienced his most traumatic experience to date in the area. 21 people died and 54 were injured in a stampede at the love parade in. Help in the parade. Because of the panic has still not been conclusively determined how does an entrepreneur in the fast lane deal with that kind of tragedy. For an event like that will haunt you always for the rest of your life i got a moral responsibility i was the organizer if i could turn back time i would do it immediately for the scale of what happened but you cant make it and you have to try to deal with what happened. Last month has also seen setbacks and crises. In the ninetys or expanded dramatically into the Czech Republic conquering in poland it was also speculating on the stock markets a little too much and neglecting the company then in 1996 we suddenly had a loss of 12000000. 00 marks the banks dont joke around if youre highly indebted and then you come in with huge losses numbers critical and then i had a heart attack in 96. 00. But everyone knows that life can get tough and things got very tough back then. Dialed back a bit including stock speculations are sold them all and thought the only thing on my table now is pulling the last month drugstore business through and up and it was the right move to focus on one thing and not do so many different things. So the. Money moves from that crisis stronger than ever he started speculating again but so he shows us only with his private wealth its called us from gets so lets see were gas promise. Can make a. Joke i did i dont have a laptop i normally do this guy and be taxed to 54 yet. Here it says i just promise at 375. 00 i could already sell those now i bought 250000 of those so 250000 times 0. 20 that would give me 50000. 00 euros profit what i want so long its going to rise to 4 euros sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt but i enjoy the us does not try to play the lottery because i find that boring but if it. Can and large fortune also be a burden. I hope it does so you might say that for most people although they wouldnt voluntarily give away their money all the fact that they want to grow can be a burden. They are controlled by their own assets. For example theyll 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 thats absurd considering the conditions we currently have been terminated. Because. Conditions in germany are currently more favorable than ever for the rich they pay significantly less tax than they did 25 years ago. Only a minority still feels compelled to immigrate abroad. Possible 14 of the german constitution states. Entails obligations its use should also serve the public could do the rates in germany live up to this responsibility. If it is free i think it is important if you are successful if you are lucky enough to have reached a certain level of prosperity and wealth to give Something Back to society for me thats a given for shuttle. Mission as one of germanys biggest dont is his money helps fund the environmental cultural and social sectors. Like most rich people he prefers to decide himself what he spends his money on rather than leave that to the state. Also like many wealthy germans donated millions for the construction of the ed for money in hamburg in germany wealthy people like to donate and this makes important contributions to society and public life but generally they were against the proposal of redistributing wealth by a higher taxes for the rich. I dont fault the near future my businesses would yield to wall the demands of tax a ms bargain cash to the left party and weve been millions of people would be happy and things would be good for a while yes that is because millions of people would have more money. But in truth redistribution of wealth has never lead to more social justice in the long term not in any of the political systems that tried it it led to the impoverishment of these countries to the limit of what. To stand for. Higher taxes on the rich as dangerous as. I dont think much about the socalled rich tax for 2 reasons because firstly the terminology alone a stigmatizing and we in germany should avoid that and secondly the rich tax wouldnt do any good on the contrary it would cut into the backbone of the German Economy because the typical german rich person is a medium sized Business Owner they make up the backbone of the German Economy and if we want to destroy that we have no one to blame but ourselves. Well there were sure of. The special issue is ready things have basically stayed the same the rich have a few 1000000000 a mole the richest one percent of germans now has personal wealth was a quarter of the countrys assets while a quarter of adults have no wealth or are in debt. For this recourse we never really got access to the world of the wealthiest germans they prefer to fly silently under the radar away from the public only until the next award 70. 6 kilos of Plastic Waste a normal couch for italian fisherman johnny calling out his crew. Youre. Going garbage men are doing their part every day to clean up the mediterranean sea. Their goal is to help preserve the local fish stocks and create a cleaner environment to go about it. 90 minutes on w. The world unto itself. With its own gravitational pull. The finest musical compositions. With some mysteries terrific. Do you listen to them dont tell me that those few strokes. For yourself and dont you come up in the morning blame. The sins of the hottest. How did the last strike in search of. The bombs occurred. On w in our. Play. This is news live from Berlin Germany chancellor shows her solidarity with germanys Jewish Community at a pivotal in berlin after a failed anti semitic attack on a synagogue in the eastern city all had suspected me of a nazi attack that chinese guns on others killing 2 people and injuring another 2 also coming up. Civilians females in syria as turkey intensifies. Against kurdish militants fish forces say turkish shells have hit civilian areas and a prison