Otto Beisheim

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Beisheim (born January 3, 1924 in Vossnacken near Essen ; † February 18, 2013 in Rottach-Egern ) was a German - Swiss businessman , entrepreneur and co-founder of the Metro Group .

Life

Beisheim comes from a simple background. After primary school, he completed a commercial apprenticeship in a leather factory in his hometown from 1939 to 1942.

Second World War

In October 1942 Beisheim voluntarily joined the Waffen-SS and temporarily served as SS-Sturmmann (corresponds to private ) in the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division on the Eastern Front. As the Bonn historian Joachim Scholtyseck shows in a detailed historical study on Beisheim's childhood and youth published in 2020, there is no evidence that he was involved in war crimes by the SS. In July 1943 Beisheim was lightly injured at the Battle of Kursk and seriously injured at Berdičev in December 1943 . After long stays in various military hospitals, he performed various staff functions from July 1944 before he was taken prisoner by the British in May 1945 . From this he was released in March 1946.

Entrepreneurship

After the Second World War , Otto Beisheim worked as an authorized signatory of the electrical trading company Stöcker & Reinshagen, Mülheim an der Ruhr ; Its owners, the Schell family, became co-partners in 1964 in the company Metro AG ( Cash and Carry ) founded by Duisburg merchants Wilhelm Schmidt-Ruthenbeck and Ernst Schmidt in 1963 in Essen . The first metro store opened in Essen-Vogelheim in November 1963, and Walter Vieth was the managing director from 1963 to 1970. With the opening of the second metro store in Mülheim an der Ruhr (1964), Otto Beisheim joined the metro and became its general manager. When in 1966/67 the traditional Duisburg company Franz Haniel & Cie. as a Metro shareholder, Otto Beisheim also became a Metro shareholder. Until Metro AG was founded, the company operated as Metro-SB-Großmärkte GmbH & Co. KG. Since 1966/67 the shareholders have been the Schmidt-Ruthenbeck (founder), Haniel and sole managing director Otto Beisheim, each with a third share. Under the management of Otto Beisheim, the company, later trading as Metro AG, has developed into one of the largest retail groups in the world.

In 1990, Beisheim acquired the rights to 2,500 films from Leo Kirch and thus saved him from bankruptcy. In addition, Beisheim was involved in the TV station Kabelkanal (today's name: Kabel eins ) until 1995 .

Beisheim Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin

On January 10, 2004, the Beisheim-Center was inaugurated on the northwest side of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin , which Otto Beisheim had built for 463 million euros and which includes 5-star hotels from the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott chains .

Beisheim owned 18.5 percent of the Metro group. In 2008, his fortune was estimated at around 4.85 billion euros . On October 7, 2009, Beisheim announced that it had sold 5.2% of the shares in Metro AG to various national and international investors. Another 3.1% could be sold as part of exchange rate hedging. This will reduce the share in Metro AG to around 10%. The Otto Beisheim Group regards the 10% stake in Metro AG as strategically sensible and sufficient.

Private

Otto Beisheim lived in Baar , Switzerland , where he took citizenship in 1988. Beisheim had a second home in Rottach-Egern, a municipality on the Tegernsee. His winter residence was Miami in Florida / USA. For fifty years he was married to his wife Inge, who died in 1999. He was married to Liese Evers since 2008. He recently suffered from an incurable disease and "passed his life due to the hopelessness of his health situation" by shooting himself with a pistol in the bathroom of his villa in Rottach-Egern.

Foundations

Beisheim worked as a patron who sponsored several kindergartens, ambulances and sports clubs near his second home in Germany. In 2005, Beisheim was granted honorary citizenship of all five valley communities on the Tegernsee at the same time.

In 1993 Beisheim donated 50 million marks to the WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (formerly WHU - Scientific University for Management ) in Vallendar ( Rhineland-Palatinate ). In return, the university has been bearing his name ever since.

Beisheim withdrew another donation offer of 10 million euros to the Tegernsee grammar school in summer 2005 on condition that it was renamed "Otto-Beisheim-Gymnasium" after the teaching staff of the grammar school issued a kind of "clearance certificate" on November 10, 2005 Beisheim's role in World War II. The government of Upper Bavaria canceled the foundation so that the school could not get the money in any case.

The Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Dresden was generously funded by the Beisheim Foundation and named the newly created ballroom, which was previously used as a reading room, Otto Beisheim Hall when it was awarded the honorary doctorate in 1993 . After it became known in 2005 that Beisheim belonged to the Waffen-SS from 1941 to 1945, this led to the revocation of the room designation in 2011.

Awards

  • 2003: Honorary Senator of WHU
  • 2005: WHU Ring of Honor
  • 2008: Honorary doctorate from WHU

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Beisheim , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 42/2007 of October 20, 2007 (cs), supplemented by news from MA-Journal until week 08/2013, in the Munzinger archive , accessed on February 25, 2013 ( beginning of the article freely available)
  2. ^ Stefan Weber: On the death of Otto Beisheim - secretive trading pioneer. Retrieved July 16, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Hagen Seidel: Otto Beisheim: suicide of a billionaire who hardly anyone knew . In: THE WORLD . February 18, 2013 ( welt.de [accessed July 16, 2020]).
  4. ^ Joachim Scholtyseck: Otto Beisheim. Youth, soldier days and development to become a trading pioneer. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2020, ISBN 978-3-506-70429-0 .
  5. ↑ Max Hägler: Beisheim is allowed to buy school names , the daily newspaper , November 16, 2005
  6. ↑ a b Michael Graeter : The great Beisheim. Evening newspaper , February 20, 2013
  7. ↑ av: Metro founder is dead: Otto Beisheim: Suicide at Tegernsee , Abendzeitung , February 18, 2013
  8. ↑ "Otto Beisheim: Suicide in the Bathroom" , Die Welt , February 19, 2013
  9. ↑ dpa: Metro co-founder Otto Beisheim is dead ( Memento from February 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), evening newspaper , February 18, 2013
  10. ↑ a b c d Professor Dr. hc mult. Otto Beisheim - WHU namesake ( memento of the original from November 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on the website of the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, accessed on February 25, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.whu.edu
  11. ↑ Max Hägler: Mr. Beisheim buys a school , the daily newspaper , October 18, 2005
  12. ↑ https://www.beisheim-stiftung.com
  13. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden. In alphabetical order ; The end of the Otto-Beisheim-Saals @ stura.tu-dresden.de, accessed June 21, 2020
  14. ↑ Honorary doctoral students of the TH / TU Dresden. In alphabetical order on the TU Dresden website, accessed June 21, 2020
  15. ^ Stephan Burgdorff: Good luck, little scruples , Spiegel special 5/1996, May 1, 1996
personal data
SURNAME Beisheim, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swiss businessman, entrepreneur, founder of the Metro company
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Vossnacken (Velbert)
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 2013
Place of death Rottach-Egern