Germany's richest techies

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Tobias Lütke

Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

For a long time, wealthy Germany was shaped by old money.

Anyone who compares manager magazin’s current list of richest people with those that a failed Prussian official named Rudolf Martin circulated in the German Empire before World War I will find a surprising amount of continuity.

Number one at the time were the Haniels, who still control a company empire worth around 5 billion euros.

Even then, families like the Henkels (then and now: Persil), the Werhahns (including Zwilling knives), the Röchlings (industry), the Faber-Castells (pens), the Wackers (chemistry), belonged to the money nobility Voiths (mechanical engineering), the Mittelsten Scheids (Vorwerk) or the Haubs (Obi and Kik).

Even after two world wars, many of the Germans who were already super-rich at the time managed to keep their fortunes together, only to then increase them by leaps and bounds.

For some years now, a new group has been pushing its way into the phalanx of the wealthy: the German techies.

They refute the myth that we Teutons do not like the digital.

Numerous Germans have created substantial fortunes with internet-based business models in recent years, many of them within a few years and practically from scratch - just like in Silicon Valley.

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