GERMANY’S RICH MEN

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 84, 3 January 1930, Page 6

GERMANY’S RICH MEN

THE EX-KAISER’S WEALTH REPARATIONS AND THE MAGNATES There was a noticeable tendency in the democratic Press during the weeks of debate over Germany’s Reparation payments to check the pre-war and present strength of her millionaires and the taxable v’alue of their estates (writes the “Observer’s” Berlin correspondent). The compiler of th a pre-war Millionaire’s Handbook, Herr Rudolf Martin, formerly an official in the German x-ome Office, has been at some pains to discover the readjustment of property to circumstances. His conclusions point to the fact that the archenemy of the German magnate, Poland, which annexed some of the finest and most lucrative properties in Silesia, has not done more than check what would have bee-i an unfair growth of the prosperity of one or two German subjects due to the increase in the prices of wood and timber in general. His list of the ten richest men in Germany to-day is sad reading for Republicans. Seven princes and three industrialists share their country’s richest spoils between them in almost exactly the same ratio as they did before the war. The paper-mark period has been safely weathered. Coal under the ground and trees growing above it have not proved false to those who originally placed their faith in them. In spite of all that has been written to prove the contrary, the ex-Kaiser remains very much the richest man of his country. His fortune is estimated at fifteen million pounds, and the extent of the estates belonging to him at over two hundred 1 thousand acres. There are another hundred thousand acres owned by various members of the house of Hohenzollern, though the exCrown Prince’s present home at Oels, in Silesia, is part of his father’s private property. The reasons for believing the ex-Kaiser . in a worse financial position than that of his countrymen whose fortune is nearly a’s great, is that he has forty-nine families for which he is technically responsible, and, as head of his house, he may be called upon at any moment to pay out large sums required by any member of it. . Prince Albert of Thurn and Taxis, xn South Germany, has gained so much by the increase in value of his woods and forests that he ranks as Germany’s second richest man, with a fortune of thirteen and a half million pounds. As third ranks Frau Bertba Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach, whose ten million pounds to-day represents a far smaller sum than her pre-war possessions. In consequence of the readjustment of Krupp’s works to peace-time production, swords being turned into ploughshares and cannon into cameras and stainless steel knives, the coal mines, the blast furnaces and smelting yards of the Krupp family have triumphantly overcome all the difficulties that beset their production after the Armistice. The firm is a family concern. Frau Krupp’s nearest rival is the Ruhr magnate, Fritz Thyssen, whose seven million pounds represents only a small particle of the property owned by the several brothers of this house. The Thyssen steelworks are very little wealthier than'the works of the great Rhenish ironmaster, Otto Wolff, of Cologne, whose personal six million pounds are certainly ■ equalled by the fortune of his partner, Ottmar Strauss. ■ ■■■■• • Students of economics will recognise that the books giving details of the great post-war fortunes of the Stinnes family and certain of their contemporaries are out of date. AU these names belong to the days during and before the Great War. Neither revolution nor inflation affected their owners permanently: the Ruhr occupation led to a reimbursement by tlie German Government; the struggles between Capital and Labour always, it seems, more embittered in this part of tho country than elsewhere, have certainly not shaken the foundations of those industries whose importance to-day in the question of Reparations payments is infinitely greater than when they supplied the Imperial Army. Prince Johann Hohenlohe Oehringen, whose land in Silesia has rich deposits of coal and zinc, is Germany’s sixth richest man, with a fortune of more than six million pounds. He is run very closely by Prince Maximilian Egon zu Furstenberg, whose Black Forest woodlands were valued, when he asked for a loan from the Deutsche Bank before the war, at over four million pounds. Timber has increased in value since then, so that Prince Maximilian is another two millions to the good, and richer to-day than Prince Guidotto Henckel von, Donnersmark, who suffered depredation by the Poles, and who, equally with his brother, possesses between three and four million pounds. Prince Henry of Pless, though he, too, lost money when he lost land to Poland, has the richest coal deposits under his land of any man in Germany. Nearly ten thousand miqers are working in his mines, and the increase in coal prices has more than outweighed the loss of his Polish domains. His five niillion pounds and more are equalled by the fortune of Prince Friedrich of Prussia, who is the son of the Prince Albrecht, former prince regent of Brunswick, whose palace in the Wilhelmstrass is hired by the German Government to-day for visiting potentates and whose money is derived from vast estates on the Rhine and in Silesia.