German logistics billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne dies at 89

German entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne has died at the age of 89, leaving a fortune estimated at $39.6 billion (around 818 billion koruna), which made him one of the richest people in the world. For a long time he was Germany's wealthiest man, until he was overtaken by Lidl founder Dieter Schwarz.

Kühne took over the family company Kuehne+Nagel in the mid-1960s and turned it into one of the world's largest logistics operators. Today the firm has more than 80,000 employees and operates in the Czech Republic as well. The businessman held a controlling stake in the company, along with shares in the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd. Since 2022 he had been the largest private shareholder of the airline Lufthansa. His group also invested in the transport operator Flix.

Kühne left no heirs. Several years ago he transferred most of his fortune to the Kühne-Stiftung foundation, where — alongside the billionaire's widow — his long-time butler plays a significant role in the leadership. Management of the foundation is to be taken over by the Basel-based lawyer Thomas Staehelin.

Throughout his career, the businessman was dogged by a dark secret from his family's past. It has been proven that Kuehne+Nagel profited from transporting property stolen from Jews during the Second World War, and Kühne's father, Alfred, was a member of the Nazi party, the NSDAP.

The billionaire himself denied his family's involvement in these events until the end of his life and blocked the publication of a historical study that the company itself had commissioned. The debate flared up again last year, when Kühne pledged almost eight billion koruna toward the construction of an opera house in Hamburg.

By the Around Prague newsroom