Trigema boss had a pompous tomb built - locals gave her a mean mocking name

Created: 07/17/2022, 04:55

By: Sina Alonso Garcia

Everything is prepared: the family grave of entrepreneur Wolfgang Grupp.

© Arnulf Hettrich/Imago/Bernd Weißbrod/dpa (photomontage BW24)

Trigema boss Wolfgang Grupp is known as someone who leaves nothing to chance.

He also wants to be prepared for his own death - and therefore had a pompous grave complex built in Burladingen.

Burladingen - In Burladingen, it is mockingly referred to as the "Burladingen necropolis": The grave complex that Trigema boss Wolfgang Grupp once had built in his home town on the Swabian Jura, causes a stir, as

writes.

The more than 675 square meter tomb with the white walls is almost reminiscent of a modern mausoleum.

If you take a closer look, you will see that Wolfgang Grupp's name and date of birth are already engraved in golden letters on a plaque.

While the 45-meter-long and 15-meter-wide burial chamber may seem ostentatious to some, Grupp replies that it's bullshit.

For him it was "no pomp and no mausoleum", as he told the

explained.

Instead, he only plans "a few row graves in the middle of a park landscape with fountains".

When construction work on the grave got underway in 2009, the Burladingers whispered behind closed doors.

Although no one wanted to comment publicly, a bakery saleswoman reported to the

at the time that many customers were annoyed by the ostentatious family grave.

Since he creates jobs in the region, apparently nobody wanted to publicly attack the "King of Burladingen".

"Many just depend on his work," said the bakery saleswoman at the time.

A local pharmacist also said: "Without him, many would be worse off here - so he should build this luxury grave for my sake."

Wolfgang Grupp is surprisingly calm about death

In April 2022, Wolfgang Grupp celebrated his 80th birthday.

He is still enthroned on the Trigema executive chair.

His successor will one day be one of his children.

It has not yet been finally clarified whether son Wolfgang Grupp Junior (32) or daughter Bonita Grupp (30) will follow in Papa's footsteps.

In the last resort, after Wolfgang Grupp's death, his wife Elisabeth would decide about Trigema - so the patriarch made her the sole heir who has the right to "ignore all his specifications and decide differently."

In view of the economic crisis in which the company is stuck due to skyrocketing raw material prices, Managing Director Grupp is surprisingly calm about death.

He recently shocked the

with the statement: "If I were to fall down tomorrow, that would be fine with me." Almost jokingly, he added: "Another one determines how long I live.

And if he plans to come for me, then I'm ready."

Wolfgang Grupp: Burladingen, a town with 12,000 inhabitants, will remember him for a long time after his death

It doesn't matter what you think of it: thanks to the pompous gravesite, the small town of Burladingen with 12,000 inhabitants will remember the company mogul with the pithy sayings for a long time after his death.

In any case, he has more than earned himself in the region.

While other companies have long since moved abroad, Grupp relies on "100 percent Made in Germany" and guarantees the children of its employees an apprenticeship position.

2009 , Grupp explained why he was building a new family grave in Burladingen despite the existing family grave

: "We've always had a family grave in Burladingen.

But there is still room for my mother and my aunt at most.

Then it is full and my family and I have no more space.

After the cemetery was expanded, the mayor offered me this corner, just a few meters from the old family grave.”