Karsten Klingbeil

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The Pallasseum in Berlin

Karsten Klingbeil (born March 8, 1925 in Stettin ; † July 1, 2016 in Berlin ) was a German sculptor , collector and real estate entrepreneur .

Life

Klingbeil was born in Stettin and grew up in a wealthy family in a villa on the Kleiner Wannsee in Berlin. His father was a senior railway official and at times head of the Berlin S-Bahn . As a schoolboy, Klingbeil was already interested in creatures in the water that he got to know on paddle boat tours. As a teenager, he took sculpture lessons from 1940 to 1943 with the Berlin artists Max Esser , Renée Sintenis and Hans Haffenrichter . In 1943 he was drafted into the anti-tank service, was taken prisoner by the Soviets and only returned after two and a half years. He then studied art and biology in Berlin.

In 1949 he founded his first company, the student job placement service TUSMA . This was followed by the founding of a newspaper distributor, an advertising company, a bowling company and a commitment to the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken . He also built show aquariums from 1957 to 1964 in Westerland on Sylt , on Timmendorfer Strand and in Oberstdorf in the Allgäu (1957–1964) and wrote books on aquarium care and historical orders of merit .

When his businesses were doing well, he began building real estate on the recommendation of his tax advisor because of depreciation . In 1967 he founded the Klingbeil Group, which in the 1970s and 1980s carried out a good 150 construction projects with more than 1000 apartments in Berlin and western Germany and which rose to become the largest construction and housing company in Berlin at the time. Most of the equity came from well-earning West Germans, who saved so much taxes with 200 percent depreciation and losses that the bottom line was that they invested almost nothing in Berlin real estate.

At the beginning of the 1970s, his company built the Sheraton Hotel at Frankfurt Airport , inaugurated in 1975 , which at the time was the largest airport hotel in Europe with 555 rooms. He received a loan of 84 million marks from the Hessische Landesbank . During his time, Klingbeil handed over party donations totaling 1.2 million marks in several installments to the mayor of Frankfurt, Rudi Arndt , which contributed to the donation affair of the Frankfurt SPD . The public prosecutor dropped the case because they could not prove a direct connection between the loan and the donation.

In 1978 he took on Axel Guttmann and Klaus Grönke as co-managing directors in the company, which now acted as a holding company for 92 individual companies and employed up to 1,000 people.

In 1985 he was involved in the Antes scandal . In the same year he sold the majority of his shares to his co-managing directors.

In 1991, the Klingbeil-Groenke-Guttmann Group acquired the GDR hotel chain Interhotel, consisting of 23 luxury hotels, from the Treuhand for over DM 1 billion  , most of which was financed through loans. A short time later he retired from his company to devote himself to sculpture and his collections again. His successors Guttmann and Groenke then changed the almost insolvent group of companies into the still existing TRIGON Immobilien Holding GmbH.

In 2011/2012 he sold his extensive collection of medieval and early modern weapons and armor as well as his collection of crustaceans comprising over 300 specimens .

Work as a sculptor

Klingbeil exhibited his sculptures in his own large garden at Wannsee, but also in Monte Carlo, Paris and Verona. He has been awarded several prizes, including a. with the gold medal for art of the city of Paris. In the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin there is a bust of Helga Hahnemann he created .

family

Karsten Klingbeil was married four times, most recently to his former chief secretary Ulla Klingbeil for over 50 years. The marriage had two children. Ulla Klingbeil is involved in the charity sector . Among other things, the Klingbeils paid for an (albeit ultimately unsuccessful) alternative cancer therapy for Tamara Danz .

Real estate projects (selection)

Fonts

  • The colorful aquarium book , with G. Keuer u. a., Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1964
  • Order: 1700-2000 , in 4 volumes, with Andreas Thies, Klingbeil, Berlin 2008–2011, ISBN 978-3-00-022480-5

Movie

In the 2001 documentary Berlin Babylon , Klingbeil is interviewed in his studio about urban development in Berlin and his exit from the property development business.

"There's no point in being the richest man in the cemetery."

- Karsten Klingbeil : about his exit from the property development business

Awards

  • Gold Medal for Art from the City of Paris

literature

Web links

Commons : Karsten Klingbeil  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Stollokowsky: Karsten Klingbeil is dead: The jack of all trades . In: tagesspiegel.de. July 24, 2016, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  2. ↑ September 2010. In: berlin-art-spot.blogspot.com. Retrieved March 30, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Barbara Jänichen: Sculptor Karsten Klingbeil lives his dream in Wannsee. In: morgenpost.de. March 6, 2005, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Ralf Schönball: The party should never end. In: tagesspiegel.de. October 31, 2001, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  5. ^ A b Peter Sandmeyer, Harf Zimmermann: The last crab walk . In: mare . tape 95 , 2012.
  6. ↑ The Karsten Klingbeil Collection / Premiere vente - First Auction: L'e musee fantastique 'de Karsten Klingbeil - Crabes et Crustaces - Crabs and Crustaceans . Pierre Berge, Hermann Historica, Bruxelles / Munich 2011, p. en .
  7. ↑ Client and sculptor Karsten Klingbeil died. In: morgenpost.de. July 21, 2016, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  8. ^ The Klingbeils: Fortune for 50 years. In: BZ Berlin. May 27, 2012, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Alexander Osang : Tamara Danz - Legends . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-86153-124-0 , p. 150 ff.
  10. ↑ PROTAGONISTS. In: berlinbabylon.de. Retrieved March 30, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Klingbeil, Karsten
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, real estate entrepreneur and collector of art and militaria
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 2016
Place of death Berlin