die 1st was basically 0 and that made it all very very difficult. thank you very much fun post there in budapest. you're watching news up next doc film looks at the discreet lives of the super rich and their forget you can always get the latest news information around the clock on our website at www dot com sumi we'll be with you with more news at the top of the next hour for me and all of us here thanks for watching. it's all happening with. your link to news from africa the world your link to exceptional stories and discussions anyone will come to this african program tonight from foreign to me from the news it's easy to our website d

deputed smart africa joined us on facebook w. africa. germany's super rich no other european country has as many 1000000000. and while there fortunes are growing more and more living under the poverty line set by the organization for economic cooperation and development. the press frequently reports on the country's high income inequality and low social mobility but little is known about the super rich the truth sure money attracts success and success attracts money as i do believe that and i've experienced it myself you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach for. the 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 him sycophantic and in no way reflects what wealthy people have done and continue to do for this country for produce ludlow's. only creates this impression of rich people being like scrooge mcduck that they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. look scrooge mcduck wants more more more that's not what world minded i walk around in my house but not swimming and we thought. we wanted to get closer to the discreet world of germany's 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 back me a friend to which the public is not invited. it's the annual hall of fame evening for the business monthly manager magazine party any other occasion in germany draws as many wealthy business as this. esteemed presenters did jury members dear ladies and gentlemen welcome to manager magazine's hall of fame. 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 have richness. we begin our nominations today with a moment and his company united internet is valued at around 11000000000 and on our list of germany's richest people the ranks 25th with a personal wealth of 4500000000 euros for months once and. electively the

guests at this elegant evening are worth billions of euros. this is the face of wealth in germany main email and although we're close to the super rich here their world remains somehow out of reach. hamburg home to manage a magazine's parent company the speaker group hardly any publication keeps close a tabs on germany's ultra rich every year the magazine steen gathers information on wealthy germans and using the forbes model makes a special edition with a list of germany's 1001 richest people. it's painstaking work. list of them how many billionaires are video of

a 48198 last year 136 right no last year it was around $170.00 or $170.00 ok on that is someone who wants to get on our list of 1001 riches germans needs to have around 100000000 with the cache of quite a snap to be money in the bank most people have it is assets or is property but that's the ballpark we're looking for to be on our list of the richest germans the bison. contant to devise and origin to. it in chief stephan plus one has been around germany's ultra wealthy for years. what does it take to get on the list. as you go to the top i'd say that the top 150 spots on our list will always go to company owners and ass shift even if you're a chief physician you'll need to see a whole lot of patients to become a billionaire as many managers also have a hard time getting that high up here in germany there's

a debate about whether the heads are cracks 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 it's peanuts in front of the whole school tania not and heena so that alone can't ever make you one of the truly ultra rich. doesn't. creating a list of the wealthiest people is especially difficult in germany they're not because there aren't enough of them. and that's when you can shop he somehow managed to amass this huge empire a fortune in just a few years it's offered for his wealth as estimated to be around 4000000000 because he's 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 don't like to help themselves so to speak poorly in the midst of this

thought know these are home stories here you can normally only get interviews inside the homes with the 2nd tier ones of you there you always get guys who get a kick out of publicity. like mr marsh. getting a good shot of mr marsh meyer is never a problem. but the real money keeps itself together does 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 won't find a single picture if you go online and google them because there hasn't been a photo of her hymen sites germany's richest family for decades and for so many stay hidden because they want to live normal lives and think that they won't be able to do so if they're known to be multi-billionaire. and live in can for months oh 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 help frank face here in a prime location tucked behind the bank city asset management company full come full can manage his german business families fortunes. its chairman christan fund best 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 they're afraid they could be seen negatively. they ask themselves what do i get from showing myself to the public it doesn't 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 there's also the fact that many errors are inheriting fortunes that are somehow tainted by or related to the 3rd reich. is.

the upper tier of rich germans avoids publicity as if it were the play. but what are they so afraid of. the help of my point i asked a number of my friends whether they'd like to be interviewed for this film and each one said no they say it's. someone else can do that better than me i can't do it right and i might come across wrong if they think they'd 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 press team one ultra rich german did agree to meet us otto is the chairman of the supervisory board of the auto critic and one of the 10 richest germans. we asked him why he germans are reluctant to show off their wealth. if you do you prefer 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 that i don't know 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 in 1972 the idea of opening the 1st self-service drug store in germany came to him today he's a multimillionaire why was he happy to step into the spotlight. and found that today in the early years it was just about getting the name rossman on their. way so when i was invited to a talk show on

a 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 aren't 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 do this. within 40 years became the most profitable drugstore chain in europe with stores 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.

myra couple of private equity investments the largest 00 you are between 80 and 100000000 depending on the progress so it's a fair sum there are also shares in different industries it would just. be boring to. find. the one that you're still referred to as n s m e because small medium enterprise why do you think that's so. i don't really know i just think of them with 55000 employees you're not really a medium enterprise anymore you're in another league. we're back at managing magazine in hand. with a special issue of being selected. a list of the richest germans includes a notably high number of company other news from the so-called medium sized businesses. it's a german peculiarity and it's not the only one. cover story for this current issue

is that last year the money rained down on germany's super rich. but up here we have the chef lives 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 they're worth but around 20000000000 give or take a bit. down here we have missed. in the head of the henkel clan she's the 1st and so far only chairman of the supervisory board of one of the 30 dax companies. germany's economy is still extremely male dominated what's 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 snapchat and so forth that have bubbled up to the top of the list we don't 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 consistently than it usually that's americans russians chinese and so on once i hear you don't really show your money you might have various houses villas and such but there's likely to be a whole spark and parked out front of your state imploding folks. it seems the average ultra wealthy german is rarely conspicuous unlike in the us athletes actors and t.v. personalities rarely make it onto the german list. even though we put a great deal of love and a sweat into estimating his fortunes probably much bigger than the tide or especially if we're talking about 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 you're likely to have 10 or 15000000000 today that's enough 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 headline in the newspaper reads the rich are getting richer and richer which is true the rich are getting richer yes it's true but it's 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 it's beautiful the ugly. question of 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 don't just take or i'm not a socialist though i can only do things because i have things. to. 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. when people talk about those on top who don't understand those at the bottom i wouldn't 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 my father out of. that's why i absolutely do understand people living in poverty today.

on the other hand i'd also say that if germany is getting more and more millionaires meaning people with small or medium sized businesses because generally the millionaires in question did build a business they now run then i think that's great. then this is because they're the people creating jobs for me that's 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. but. 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 the industry just.

kind of is it that rich germans are able to increase their wealth while the rest of the population gets left behind. the begins to get a kick i think it's difficult to apply terms like equity and fairness to the distribution of wealth i would say that here in germany we're 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 doesn't get too wide because we don't want social conflicts like in the u.s. or latin america to happen here in america. from best of times company through come is a so-called multi-family 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. so. this is carson well of a family office like ours and obviously can't discuss its clients so we have well known german business families that's our typical client profile so like also she came to you money someone who we were was a company owner thinks differently to someone who has spent their life is going to come to you. more they are families who have had money for a long time it's all so well is so to speak in their genes. is that it wasn't. for me and then there are families who have just come into their wealth who are still pumping with entrepreneurial energy guys to their usually quite different from heirs from carter i see it as a total. my stanford. seems to have plenty of this entrepreneurial energy his company is max that europe's largest fitness studio chain. its head courses are in and all of the baking factory in

berlin kind of started off small but today his wealth is valued at 250000000 euros. and they're from but i was born near. up in a small village normally in villages you do the sports available and when i was around $1516.00 my role models were arnold schwarzenegger and stallone so i came to the fitness world for my son i went from secondary school to computer salesman apprenticeship and became the many tales 3 supermarkets then he decided to start something new. for the for me to move through vincent and even 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. that was the initial idea and i had big goals i wanted to be number one in europe but that's all i had i didn't 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 monetary ship if you would you book 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 l. and i think that did the job and also put me on track to going from boats blog to spend then it grew from there. 10 years they have reached his goal he's number one in europe and still expanding. next it now owns 10 fitness companies as well as its own model agency. meanwhile is getting ready to open fitness studios in the u.s.

. and severe 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 it's probably 2 steps too far for many. but if someone doesn't want to get involved with us because of it so what . so what you can do it so i. am convinced 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 that's 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 so we'll have a much tougher time and. 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 that is who don't want to and others who shouldn't take over their parents' businesses succession is hugely important among germany's richest men and harry said the mail order company from his father and successfully managed it. for money can is this it will be harder for my children though because now the auto group has $123.00 companies in over 30 countries one of the lines once as i know every single company either because i was involved when it was founded or because i let the take of a negotiation for money can. my children don't yet know the many companies because . otters children have opted against direct succession of. the fitness beasties discipline i think it's important to give your children the option without pressuring them so you don't force them into

a wrong i think that mistake is made often and i'd say it's bad for both the children and the company most you can just want an income put. his or her money so now we have one point of sale. are you a bit tired your house is on an exhausting couple of days in 10 minutes i'll be fine a unit was just bam bam bam bam. did cost money also spent a lot of time considering who his successor would be it's now decided carlos last month the younger of his $2.00 sons will take over as manager of the drugstore chain. rod do we actually sell much yarn it's not exactly part of a drugstores range is a trend sort of over it was big in 2016 already fading in 2017 and it's been stagnating in 2018 but it's not the worst product we have and it still brings in some revenue that's what our money. runs father had to show him the appeal of being in charge. then using the boys got more engaged i thought oh no we can't look as if

the drugstore business is only about making money so i showed them how we're also active in social issues in africa and so forth. and i've always showed my sons there what we do isn't just about making money it's also about being responsible for others by name for mentioning. as a child i wanted to become a film director and that was always my dream it still is today you know how to get that and then you might be thinking you know i don't want to be a director film oh my i want to run the company so i said i want to go ahead and become a director. but being a director of such a big company is also exciting and i did manipulate him a bit. but what if you could find often asked whether i feel competitive toward my father and sure he built up this big company that i will only take over but it's really difficult to keep something

going these days the founding period has its own challenges and just having the idea of founding a self-service drugstore was hugely innovative much to come but the fight to survive has gotten tougher and that's the one i'm in. is called also. bought 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 that's also shaped our view of life or mine at least depict as a tremendous minor. despite their competitiveness the last month family reached out how many is agreement with regard to succession. as playing against raul wipes me out are normally prefer playing doubles that's

much more appropriate for men my age i miss him if i'm starting to worry a bit about you you worry about me with your own arrogance i wouldn't be looking forward to it. selecting as an successes is usually not quite as amicable as at the last month's. stanford best time has seen many inheritance disputes in rich families it's his job to preserve the family's assets and protected from all sorts of dangers. and from moving so high for maintaining a family fortune over several generations is incredibly difficult because it's under threat from being divvied up through inheritance from well just humans 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 wouldn't you know

we go. from base does time speaks from personal experience his own family's history dates back 900 years it's like i have a horribly long name at least on my birth certificate there's my 6 given names christiane waterloo to be cool and maria as a good catholic. followed by by horn fun malcolm hi i'm beschloss hi i'm what it work i'm normally called mr for investors hein and at social events baron or lord baron. baron from the time is an indirect success of the focus the richest family in germany his train. winters well to begin 3 years for its reserves if you're asking me at what point i consider someone to be truly right i would say over a 100 yards. i don't but i still really all in but. if you could definitely definitely not rich.

but i'm comfortable you go in your family is comfortable because and i'm certainly not complaining when there is no longer when you have a family history as long as. your family has seen everything. near bankruptcy. years overflowing with money. and years when a lot was lost in the war the news. he takes us to the hunting lodge stuff the best time family in tilling and. it looks like the laws have been lost for ever tearing the division of germany. holes where the house was built in 892 was a hunting lodge for my great great grandson calls. it's 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 i've owned it in mine and visits.

the family's hunting lodge survived expropriation and socialism without much damage . today from best time also and hundreds of pictures of forests nearby and regularly invites me. since acquaintances full hands. many of the trophies or more to get several also come from my father. and some from my great grand uncle. that leopard down there i didn't shoot him with that was my great grand uncle who by then my dogs chewed off his ears so he no longer has his former beauty and stickers for him but he's too precious not to keep the thoughts and. i swear. a recurring topic in the special issues of the manager magazine of the superwealthy sneh 12 x. it goes on plan there are larger and smaller networks and there are a lot of them and most even we journalists don't know about in high society there

are certain typical hobbies that horse racing hockey but a tennis though that's almost old school you know the school my tricycle meet in the boxes at major football stadiums because of course they're all football fan but since info police huge. lots of networking happens there that's not their marketplace they mingle and made them more than it so-called parties for the rich as of zubin and i think. that's going to. have enough people will is there a lot of employees here and we have a lot of friends in the box christian pfeiffer's here today germany's most famous criminologist speaking in manassas it's sometimes you may live for someone from politics comes by because turnbull from between are part of my close are called friends so there's always lots going on here i think it's something new to be.

invented and hina seana 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 entertainment industry is. saying you're going on the kind of visit that. i know you see. in the business is true it's a close circle that's hard to get into and i'm sure money attracts success and success attracts money i do believe that in order 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 shun future and the plan. was. to have a good definition of l.a.

and san francisco. that's where this gets bored. by was. declasse man is ready to leave his box he wants to celebrate the victory with his friends the 1000000000 it and hearing aid company owner martin kindt. kent is also current owner and president of kind of in 96 his box is located on the other end of the exclusive the ip area now i told you we'd win today is that mike if you know you're going to be offered that i told him that if we didn't win you get paid $10000000.00 that was the bet all right that was part of it there were no i never said that yeah they were here we have it to a halfway decent is 30 given up by the draft never. networks are important for business but do the rich also have political clout can political influence people 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 when it's often how much someone who runs a company with 100000 employees or let's say last maybe 15000 employees can go to business associations and sank. fine go ahead and pass that law 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 that like and so on that's not how things work here in germany france and it isn't pushing. it is one of the experts told me you know this is not one of it's a stand by it's technique classes this time the deadline for the special issue is approaching the heart of it is the ranking of the 1001 richest german stores what

do the rich think of this ranking. their rankings in those rankings are for entertainment or scrape together sometimes using stock market corporations but they aren't reliable in any real way and for. not getting in the business of thinking also cost position and you i don't think much of these rankings and i didn't want to be included because it creates this impression of rich people being like scrooge mcduck you know they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. the fact that i'm at the top of the ranking saying including of the wealthiest germans does make me feel proud and finish no truly please it's for a manager magazine every now and then but i've never read the ranking i don't know whether i'm in it i don't need that my brother goals. one of these is that hi michelle and now wants to open the world's largest fitness center in north rhine-westphalia. and then around is japanese and means the future

we think it's 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 world's business center for the center. i think he's found the perfect location to realize his vision in. his rented an old 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. in c.x. its path will be here new officers on top. experienced his most traumatic experience to date in the area and 2021 people died and 54 were injured in a stampede at the love parade in. help in the parades organized. the cause of the

panic has still not been conclusively determined how does an entrepreneur in the fast lane deal with that kind of tragedy. 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 can't make it and you have to try to deal with what happened. last month has also seen setbacks and crises. in the ninety's or expanded dramatically into the czech republic congregant poland 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 don't joke around if you're 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. i think that that's what is a. sort of a lie dialed back a bit including stock speculation is fact 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 it's called moral guess from gets so let's see were gas promise . kept i don't have a laptop i normally do this guy and be taxed to $54.00. here it

says i guess promise at $375.00 it's true for column i could already sell those now i bought 250000 of those so 250000 times $0.20 that would give me 50000 euros profit what i want so long it's going to rise to 4 euros but sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but i enjoy us does not try and play the lottery because i find that boring but if it. can and launch fortune also be a burden. the hope that it does so you might say that for most people although they wouldn't voluntarily give away their money all of them the fact that they want to grow can be a burden. they are controlled by their own assets they for example 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 that's absurd considering the

conditions we currently have and terminated. 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 immigration. 14 of the german constitution states proper. entails obligations its use shall also serve the public could do the rate 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 that's a given for shortly. the 2 is one of germany's 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. also like many wealthy germans donated 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 they're against the proposal of redistributing wealth by a higher taxes for the rich. i don't fault if the german businesses would yield to wall the demands of hard say mr barton cash to the left party and we've been millions of people would be happy and things would be good for a while yes 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 for it. to stand for. higher taxes on the rich as

dangerous as. i don't think much about the so-called rich tax for 2 reasons because firstly if the terminology alona stigmatizing and we in germany should avoid that and secondly the rich tax wouldn't 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 my homeboy those in. or should. 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 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 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 ceremony. in. amsterdam is a beautiful city that draws people to it almost magnetically the dutch capital has become so popular. that locals can barely afford to live there anymore gentrification exploding prices high demand this is real estate prices and the

squeeze in. 30 minutes on d w. it's 2019 copa america and believe it is closing in south america this is hostess brazil the pressure is on the problems. you're applying to none of it transmits to subtle movies that fall down. 90 minutes on w. . told. i'm not laughing at the germans because sometimes i am but mostly i'm laughing with the time and i think deep into the german culture of. mutants we take this grandma

day on the east coast it's all about who had enough time rachel join me to meet the japanese monkey double holes cut. this is due to your news live from berlin still fighting slavery after 100 years as the international labor organization marks its centenary we look at its assets to bring dignity to work and how to drive for the lowest possible cost and leave the harsh conditions and exploitation also coming out to the tourist boat that sank in budapest is raised from the river.