Germanys 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 as i do believe that and ive experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach for. Germanys super wealthy how do they live and how do they see the country they live in. The way wealthy people in germany are talked about bothers me because it sensationalizing and sycophantic and and in no way reflects what wealthy people have done and continue to do for this country for produce long close them but. I need creates this impression of rich people being like Scrooge Mcduck that they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. Have a better look and Scrooge Mcduck wants more more more and thats not what world minded. I walk around in my us but not swimming and 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 take on balcony a friend to which the public is not invited. Its the annual hall of fame evening for the business monthly manager Magazine Party any other occasion in germany joins as many wealthy Business Owners. There giving out the. Steam to presenters dear jury members dear ladies and gentlemen welcome to manager magazines hole of fact. When we 1st founded the hall of fame in 1902 we wanted to take a stand for excellence and unconditional on trip inertia and against faint hearted ness and averageness. If 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 ranks 25th with a personal wealth of 4500000000 euros for months fancy him it 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 also for each. And home to manage a magazines Parent Company the Speaker Group hardly any publication keeps closer tabs on germanys ultra rich every year the magazines team gathers information on wealthy germans and using the books model makes a special edition with a list of germanys 1001 richest people. Its painstaking work. What is the going how many billionaires are video from a 481. 00 the 198 last year was 136. 00 right no lester it was around 170. 00 or 170. 00 ok well that is someone who wants to get on our list of 1001 richest germans needs to have around 100000000 with the cache of cutters and 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 and dargent. Editor in chief stephan close man has been around germanys ultra wealthy for years. What does it take to get on the list. As you go to the top id say that the top 150 spots on our list will always go to Company Owners and as even if youre a chief physician youll need to see a whole lot of patients to become a billionaire its many managers also have a hard time getting that high up here in germany theres a debate about whether the head companies too much of an index i say 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 what you can show he somehow managed to amass this huge empire and fortune in just a few years its offered for his wealth is estimated to be around 4000000000 hes the least known super rich germans in the homewood he let 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 the lot of these thought no these are home stories here you can normally only get interviews inside the homes with 2nd tier one there you always get guys who get a kick out of publicity. Like mr marsh. Getting a good shot of mr marsh myer is never a problem. But the real money keeps itself had to be guilty as this has to hurt. The super rich. And 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 multimillionaires. And live in 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 in the Financial Hub frank face here in a prime location tucked behind the bank teller as sits the Asset Management company full come full can manage his german business familys fortunes. Its chairman christan fanbase the time provided some insight as to why rich germans also shine. Detroit 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. Is. The attitude of rich germans avoids duplicity as if it were the play. But what are they so afraid of. The habiliments one who gives i asked a number of my friends whether theyd like to be interviewed for this film and each one said no theyd say. Someone else can do that better than me because 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 lot of back and forth with this press team one ultra rich german did agree to meet us otto is the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the auto korean and one of the 10 richest germans. We asked him why germans are reluctant to show off their wealth. If you do him harm you before any wiring doing so would lead to envy in the us achievements 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 know draw i like it mr scott when he. Did cost money grew up poor his mother ran a small drug store and post will have his son had bigger plans and 972. 00 the idea of opening the 1st selfservice drugstore in germany came to him today hes a multimillionaire why was he happy to step into the spotlight. And function. In the early years it was just about getting the name rossman on their. Way so when i was invited to a talk show i want to small regional channel i like going 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 teased 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 didnt just. Within 40 years became the most profitable drugstore chain in europe with still in 6 countries. In 2018 a total of 56000 people working on the chain. Osman is active in other business areas as well and he speculates on the stock market. Because. My i was couple of private Equity Investments the largest is are all youd have between 80 and 100000000 depending on the stock so its a fair sum there are also shares in Different Industries it would just. Be boring. A little and. Youre still referred to as n s m e because small Medium Enterprise why do you think thats so. I dont really know i just think of them with 55000 employees youre not really a Medium Enterprise anymore youre in another league and then. Were back at manager magazine in hand with a special issue of being selected. The list of the richest germans includes a notably high number of Company Owners 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. Here we have the chef loves the matriarch and her son who now owns 80 percent mom has kept only 20 scheffler sabine at 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. You know down here we have missed bargewell task 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 tax companies. Germanys economy is still extremely mild dominated and 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 us you have all those lands from Facebook Google snap chat and so forth a lot of 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 the very few german sail around boats like this consistently usually thats american and russians chinese and so on once i hear you dont really show your money you might have various houses villas and such but theres likely to be a spark and parked out front of it yes didnt work so. It seems the average ultra wealthy german is rarely 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 love and sweat into estimating his fortunes are probably much bigger than the tide or especially if were talking about urban real estate where 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 in are often. 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. Erosion of the title is the right. My 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 that there are 20000000. 00 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 probably that they can dedicate much more time to increasing their wealth but for the cold ugly times are a bargain 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 in i dont just take or im not a socialist though i can only do things because i have things. Can you know best. Is one of the great his wealth has increased he successfully transitioned his mail order business into a Digital Enterprise of the 20 companies now belong to the us a group. We wanted to know how to seize the debates about rich and poor. Do the rich understand the worries of the poor. In. The us 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 and my father. 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 the business they now run then i think thats great. Then this is 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 good. Ensuring that the wealth of rich families can increase despite current 0 Interest Rates is the mission of custom front company. With. 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 author to just a handful of valued clients and focus on this he does and you. Know is it said that rich germans are able to increase their wealth while the rest of the population gets left behind. The gifting if they think its difficult to apply terms like equity and fairness to the distribution of wealth 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 u. S. Or latin america to happen here in america. From based on Times Company full 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 upward of 30000000 euros who can afford such a thing. So. This is cause and well of a Family Office like ours and obviously cant discuss its clients so we have well known german business families thats our typical client profile sort of a class of. Human someone who we were was a Company Owner thinks differently to someone who has spent their life is going to come to you. Or their families who have had money for a long time or so well. So to speak in their genes. This is that. For me and then there are families who have just come into their wealth who are still pumping with Entrepreneurial Energy guys who still are usually quite different from errors from kark the. Top of my stanford. Seems to have plenty of this Entrepreneurial Energy his company is not fit europes largest Fitness Studio chain. Its head courses are in an all of baking factory in berlin kind of started off small but today his wealth is valued at 250000000 euros. And theyre from but i was born near up in a small village and normally in villages you do the sports available and when i was around 1516 my role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and stallone thats how i came to the fitness world. I went from secondary school to compete to salesman apprenticeship and became the many tales 3 supermarkets then he decided to start something new. For the for me to move through when i was 25 this but i decided to switch to the Fitness Industry my idea was to open a gym where anyone could train no matter his or her income. 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 shall i 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 why. Else we had studios so i gave it some thought and came up with the next marketing gag soon also in alan at the thing that did the job and also put me on track to going from goats blog to spend then it grew from there. 10 years later i never should have reached his goal hes number one in europe and still expanding. It now owns 10 Fitness Companies as well as its own model agency. Meanwhile shana is getting ready to open Fitness Studios in the us. And suburban is getting to be 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 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 convinced that you have an easier time if you want your way to the top and to success the clients feel it and so to partners. I think thats our situation over just us 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 you know what will happen much tougher time and money. A c s. But there are plenty of s. In germany huge fortunes and thousands of companies have been passed from one generation to the next. They dont want to and others who shouldnt take over their parents businesses succession is hugely important among germanys richest. And harry said the Mail Order Company from his father unsuccessfully managed it. From what you 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 francis i know every Single Company either because i was involved when it was founded or because i led the take i have a negotiation when you can not my children dont yet know the Many Companies because. Utters children have opted against direct succession. Beef industry status when i think its important to give your children the option without pressuring them so you dont force them into a role i think that mistake is made often and id say its bad for both the children and the company. Name to put. Your money so i only have one point of sale. Are you a bit tired yes is there an exhausting couple of days i do it in 10 minutes ill be fine again it was just bam bam bam bam. Did close one also spent a lot of time considering who his successor would be its now decided. The younger of his 2 sons will take over as manager of the drugstore chain. Called rock we actually so much yarn its not exactly part of the drugstores range the 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. But. Father had to show him the appeal of being in charge. And then pleasing when the boys got more engaged i thought oh now we cant look as if the drugstore business is only about making money so i showed them how were also active in social issues and africa and so forth. And ive always showed my son is there what we do isnt just about making money its also about being responsible for others mention. Why do women as a child i wanted to become a film director that was always my dream it still is today and how do you mean megadeth then you might be thinking you know i dont want to be a director film oh my i want to run the company i think is so i said i want to go ahead and become a director and but being a director of such a big company is also exciting and i did manipulate him a bit. This but what if im often asked whether i feel competitive toward my father and sure he built up this big company that i will 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 but succumbed but the fight to survive has gotten tougher and thats the one im in. Is called also. Everyone in my family wants to be good at sports you could my father and i battle each other in tennis. We all compete with one another. And thats also shaped our view of life or mine at least depict as a tremendous minor. Despite the competitiveness the last month family reached home only is agreement with regard to succession. As playing against are all wipes me out are normally prefer playing doubles thats much more appropriate for men my age i miss him if 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 that the last months. 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 changes. And for movements 100. 00 maintaining a family fortune over several generations is incredibly difficult because its under threat from being divvied up through inheritance from wealth disputes from expropriation from wars or simply from stupidity 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 wouldnt you know we go. From place to us time speaks from personal experience his own familys history dates back 900 years. I have a horribly long name at least on my birth certificate theres my 6 given names christiane. Villa him and maria as a good catholic followed by malcolm hi im best its high time but it work im normally called mr for investors time and at social events baron or lord baron. There. Time isnt in direct success of the focus the richest family in germany has trained. Winters well to begin for years for its reserves if youre asking me at what point i consider someone to be truly right i would say over a 100 yards. Up im glad were all in but. If you could defeat me i am definitely not rich. I was keep my good play but im comfortable were going our family is comfortable with and im certainly not complaining theres no longer when you have a Family History as long as im honest or with your family have seen everything. Near bankruptcy. Years overflowing with money. Inside and years when a lot was lost in the war the news. He takes us to the Hunting Lodge of the best time family in tilling and. It looks like the laws have been lost for ever tearing the division of germany. Has holes where 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 you can except for a short interval. It was expropriated in 1952 and then restitute it in 1902 and since then ive owned mine and visits. The familys Hunting Lodge survived expropriation and socialism without much damage. Today from the east coast time also and hundreds of pages of forest nearby and regularly invites business acquaintances for hunts. And calls total free many of the trophies or more i was allowed to get several also come from my father. And some from my great grand uncle. Leopard die. And there i didnt shoot him with the force that was my great grand uncle who then my dog chewed off his ears so he no longer has his former beauty and stickers for it but hes too precious not to keep it. As. A recurring topic in the special issues of the menage a magazine of the super wealthy as 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 Old School Old school my tricycle meets in the boxes at major football stadiums because of course theyre all football fans spence and co billys huge. Lots of networking happens there thats not their marketplace they mingle and meet them more than it socalled parties for the rich as of zubin and i think part. Of. That would. Have enough and we always are a lot of employees here and we have a lot of friends in the box christian fivers here today germanys most famous criminologist c. C. Im not states sometimes you may live for someone from politics comes right because john boehner from between are part of my close or good friends so theres always lots going on here i think its something new to be. Involved in that kind of shana is opening a new club 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. Along the way. I hope you see this kitchen because listen this is true its a close circle thats hard to get into. Sure money attracts success and success attracts money i do believe that order 5 experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach. I am in a different position the 2 to shun future in the plan. Was. To be with a good definition. In san francisco. Thats all there is gets bored. By god was the. Last one is ready to leave his box he wants to celebrate the victory with his friend the billionaire and hearing and company own it martin kindt. Kent is also current owner and president of kind of a 96 he spots is located on the other end of the exclusive v. I. P. Area that i took when to do that all i could tell you that i told him that if we didnt win you could 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 halfway decent 3rd of the given up on the day after never the. Networks are important for business but do the rich also have political clout can political influence be bolts in germany. Will stimulate the best way available for retro super rich people in germany to exert influence is the number of employees working in a company as one its often one of someone who runs a company with 100000 employees or lets say less maybe 15000. 00 employees can go to Business Associations and say fine many go ahead and pass that law school but that will cost me or an even better argument is that will cost you 2000 jobs in that area and jobs in dubai but there are no super rich people who regularly call up the ministers. Ms merkel and say what needs to happen next which tax law said like and so on thats not how things work here in germany france and it is unfortunate. That this is one of the statement if you know it is not a sumatra one i stand by its technique classes this time the deadline for the special issue is approaching the heart of it is the ranking of the 1001 richest germans what do the rich think of this ranking. Those rankings are for entertainment or scrape together harm sometimes using stock market corporations but they arent reliable in any real way and for. The giving of this interesting can also coughed. And you know 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 because they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. The fact that im at the top of the ranking using including of the wealthiest germans does make me feel proud and finish no truly please its more of an ill read manager magazine every now and then but ive never read the ranking and i dont know whether im in it 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. A raw is 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. Some of the things hes found the perfect location to realize his vision in. His rented an old factory complex. At the moment the spaces. 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 and the officers on top. Experienced his most traumatic experience today in the area. 21 people died and 54 were injured in a stampede at the love parade. Had been 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. And event like that will haunt you always for the rest of your life ive 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 congorilla in poland it was also speculating on the stock markets a little too much and neglecting the company then in 1906 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 that was critical 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 i 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 the best form gets so lets see were gas promise. You can make a. Couple i dont have a laptop i normally do this by and to be taxed to 54. 00 yet. Here it says i just promise at 375. 00 its room for column i could already sell those now to about 250000 of those so 250000 times 0. 20 that would give me 50000 euros profit but i wont so when its going to rise to 4 euros sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt but i enjoy us thats why i dont play the lottery because i find that boring but if it. Can and large fortune also be a burden. The hope the city 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 and 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 sobre want. To call 14 of the german constitution states. Entails obligations its use should also serve the public could do the rich 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 sufficient lea michele to is one of germanys biggest stone 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. Otto like many wealthy germans stand they said millions for the construction of the ed for the money in hamburg in germany wealthy people like to donate and this makes important contributions to society and public life that generally theyre against the proposal of redistributing wealth by a higher taxes for the rich. I dont fault if your man businesses would yield to wall the demands of hard say mr barton cash to the left party when millions of people would be happy and things would be good for a while this moment because millions of people would have more money. But in truth redistribution of wealth has never led 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 stand for. Higher taxes on the rich as dangerous as the fellows were going to get i could but 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. 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 report we never really got access to the world of the wealthiest germans they prefer to sign into the under the radar away from the public until the next award ceremony. And. I go to college. Keep learning marched reality wait a 2nd we want the whole picture our facts instead of make ideas shift deliver us. From augmented reality to cryptocurrency your topics for live in an ever changing Digital World lets start with the devise a sure fire shift. D. W. In good shape 1st and save lives. In which unseen canadians anywhere on the highway at a rock concert and its very hard to beat it out. Whats the best way to treat someone whos been hurt we tell you how. Good shit in 30 minutes. They will not succeed in dividing us so that ill not succeed in taking the people off the streets because were tired of just to try to show. Taking the stand global news that matters d. W. Made for mines. Bases data every news live from berlin typhoon haggis wreaks havoc in japan rescue efforts are in full force as large areas of the country face record rains flooding and landslides leaving thousands without power and water also coming out. As turkey pushes on with its military incursion into Northern Syria germany and france hold arms exports to ankara tens of thousands of people are on the move displaced by ankaras offensive against kurdish fighters. And tolls have opened in poland and up