Hypothetical question: Let's say you inherited billions of dollars from your parents. And, as you might expect, those billions of dollars have allowed you to enjoy a luxurious life filled with multiple mansions around the world, private jets, exotic vacations, expensive jewelry, fast cars, and never-ending lavish parties. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Ok, now how would you feel if you found out that your entire fortune exists because your ancestor was one of the the most evil human beings of all time? A perpetrator of an evil scheme that murdered tens of millions of people while enriching himself and his future heirs. AKA, you.
To make our hypothetical question a bit more real, let's say the evil person was Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In case you're not aware, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's right-hand man, wasn't just a Nazi politician; he was the architect of their hate. A gifted speaker and media manipulator, he used radio, film, and rallies to weave a web of lies, demonizing Jews and fueling Nazi fanaticism. He whipped Germans into war fervor, then spun wartime defeats as glorious sacrifices. Utterly ruthless, he advocated the Holocaust, inciting the murder of millions. Beyond ideology, he reveled in cruelty. Goebbels wasn't just evil; he was the engine of Nazi evil.
So let's pretend Goebbels was your Step-Grandfather. And let's also pretend he is the source of your massive fortune today. Could you live with yourself? Would you donate all or some of the money to charity? Maybe you wouldn't care at all, and you'd just go on living the dream?
This is not a hypothetical question for a family of German billionaires. And not just random, low-profile billionaires who own some nameless industrial company. The two main people we are going to talk about today currently rank #3 and #4 on our list of the richest people in Germany. And their fortune today comes from a brand you absolutely know. It's a brand that might be sitting in your garage right now.
Joseph Goebbels Billionaire Grandchildren / Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In the photo above, Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda are pictured seated, surrounded by their six young children. This photo was taken in 1942. To understand the level of his pure evil, just three years after this photo was taken, in May 1945, with WW2 ending and the Soviet army approaching Berlin, Joseph ordered a dentist to inject his six children with morphine to put them to sleep. He then ordered the dentist to place crushed cyanide into each child's mouth, murdering them while they were unconscious. The children were 12, 11, 9, 8, 6, and 4 years old. Joseph and Maga then walked out of the bunker and killed themselves.
It's just pure, soul-less human garbage.
But as you may have noticed, there's one more person in the photo with the Goebbels family. This guy:
That man in the military uniform is Magda Goebbel's son from a previous marriage, Harald Quandt. Before she married Joseph, Magda was married to German industrialist Guenther Quandt from 1921 to 1929. Harald was the couple's only child. Guenther had a son from a previous marriage named Herbert.
Long before World War II, Guenther Quandt turned a struggling family textile business that he inherited from his father, Emil Quandt, into one of the earliest German industrial business empires. During World War I, Guenther's company became the largest clothing manufacturer in Germany by producing military uniforms. When WWI was over, Guenther, now flush with cash, acquired an empire of businesses. He bought a company that made batteries, a company that made sewing machines, a silverware manufacturer, and a large stake in carmaker Daimler (modern-day Mercedes/Chrysler).
Two years after their divorce, Magda married Joseph Goebbels. As you now know, they eventually had six children. When Magda and Joseph got married, Adolf Hitler served as best man.
During World War II, Guenther Quandt's companies capitalized on an abundance of war-time opportunities, many of which were approved and arranged by his ex-wife's new husband. He also "acquired" companies from Jews who were forced to offload their assets or had their assets seized. His companies produced batteries for German submarines, firearms, ammunition, missiles, and rocket launchers. During the war, the company's growth was primarily fueled by 50,000 slave laborers, including POWs and members of concentration camps.
A 2007 documentary about the Quandt's business at this point alleged that 80 people died every month working in the family's battery company alone.
When Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, Joseph Goebbels became Chancellor of Germany. It was a title Goebbels held for just one day before he and Magda murdered their six young children and committed suicide themselves. Before committing suicide, Goebbels sent his stepson Harald the following note:
"It's likely that you'll be the only one to remain who can continue the tradition of our family."
After the war, Harald was released from the Allied POW camp, and Guenther spent time in an internment camp for Nazi sympathizers. Seven years later, Guenther Quandt died. He left his thriving empire, which at this point included 200 businesses, to his sons Harald and Herbert. Harald and Herbert spent the next decade expanding the empire to incredible heights.
In the early 1960s, Herbert purchased 46.7% of BMW. Harald died in 1964 in a plane crash. Control of the family empire was transferred to Herbert. In 1974, Herbert sold the family's 14% stake in Daimler to the Kuwait Investment Authority for $1 billion. That's the same as around $6 billion in today's dollars.
Herbert was married three times. He had one child with his first wife, a daughter named Silvia, and one child with his second wife, a daughter named Sonja. He had two children with his third and final wife, Johanna Bruhn. Johanna was his secretary before they married. Herbert and Johanna's children are Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten. Stefan and Susanne each own 21% of BMW. The other half-siblings also own stakes in BMW, but for some reason, their stakes were not large enough to make them billionaires. Stefan and Susanne however, are each worth $26 billion. They are the #3 and #4 richest people in Germany. Johann died in 2015. Here is a photo of Stefan, Johanna, and Susanne that was taken in 2009:
(FRANK RUMPENHORST/DPA/AFP via Getty Images)
Harald also had children before he died in the plane crash in 1964. Harald's four surviving daughters inherited $760 million when their mother died in 1974, the vast majority of which came from the sale of Daimler that same year. After three decades of additional smart investments, the four sisters today share a fortune that has ballooned to a combined $10 billion. That's $2.5 billion per sister. Not even a tenth of the fortunes enjoyed by their cousins Stefan and Susanne.
The Quandts are far from the only billionaires today whose fortune has Nazi connections. Heirs to Porsche, Mercedes and Volkswagen all have very uncomfortable truths in their histories.
So, how would you feel if you were one of Harald and Herbert's billionaire children?
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