Friedrich Karl Flick (3 February 1927 – 5 October 2006) was a German-Austrian
industrialist
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
and
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
.
Early life
He was born in Berlin,
the youngest son of
Friedrich Flick
Friedrich Flick (10 July 1883 – 20 July 1972) was a German industrialist and convicted Nazi war criminal. After the Second World War, he reconstituted his businesses, becoming the richest person in West Germany, and one of the richest people i ...
, an industrialist and convicted Nazi war criminal, and Marie Schuss. After his studies, he worked in his father's company. In 1972, when his father died, he inherited the major part of the family business.
Career
As the sole owner of the Friedrich Flick Industrial Holding (Industrieverwaltung), he had interests in major companies including
Daimler-Benz
The Mercedes-Benz Group Aktiengesellschaft, AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It ...
,
WR Grace, Gerling Insurance,
Buderus,
Dynamit Nobel
Dynamit Nobel AG is a German chemical and weapons company whose headquarters is in Troisdorf, Germany. It was founded in 1865 by Alfred Nobel.
Creation
After the death of his younger brother Emil in an 1864 nitroglycerin explosion at the famil ...
, Feldmühle and others.
In 1975 he sold his part of Daimler-Benz to the
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
for more than $1 billion.
Major tax liabilities were avoided through "cultivation of the political landscape",—a process that turned into the
Flick Affair
The Flick affair was a West German political scandal of the early 1980s relating to donations by the Flick company, a major German conglomerate, to various political parties, according to Flick manager Eberhard von Brauchitsch, "for the cultivat ...
in 1983 when it became apparent that about $25 million had been paid to German political parties in return for tax cuts and favorable rulings. Although Chancellor
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
benefited from the dealings, he claimed he had "no recollections", while others resigned from their posts. In 1985 Flick sold off the remainder of his companies. When Deutsche Bank announced that it had bought his holdings for about $3 billion
German mark
The Deutsche Mark (; English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was ...
s, Flick retired in Austria, where he became a naturalised citizen.
In March 2006, his estimated net worth was $6.1 billion.
Personal life
Flick married three times and had two children from his second and third marriages. At the time of his death, he was the wealthiest person living in Austria.
He died on 5 October 2006 at his villa in
Auen on the
Wörthersee
Wörthersee (; Slovene: ''Vrbsko jezero'', en, Lake WörthTesch, F. W. 1977. ''The Eel: Biology and Management of Anguillid Eels''. Transl. Jennifer Greenwood. London: Chapman and Hall, p. 195.) is a lake in the southern Austrian state of Carin ...
, Austria.
In November 2008, it was reported that an oak coffin containing his remains was taken from his family's
mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...
at a cemetery at
Velden am Wörther See
Velden am Wörthersee ( Slovene: ''Vrba na Koroškem'') is a market town in Villach-Land District, in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Situated on the western shore of the Wörthersee lake, it is one of the country's most popular holiday resorts.
...
, in what
Austrian Federal Police believe may be an attempt to extort money from his widow. His widow Ingrid Flick, his third wife, inherited an estimated £4bn. She and his children are now under police guard. The body was returned in 2009.
See also
*
List of billionaires
''The World's Billionaires'' is an annual ranking by documented net worth of the wealthiest billionaires in the world, compiled and published in March annually by the American business magazine ''Forbes''. The list was first published in March ...
*
Flick family The Flick family is a wealthy German family with an industrial empire that formerly embraced holdings in companies involved in coal, steel and a minority holding in Daimler AG.
Friedrich Flick (1883–1972) was the founder of the dynasty, establis ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flick, Friedrich Karl
1927 births
2006 deaths
Businesspeople from Berlin
German billionaires
20th-century Austrian businesspeople
21st-century Austrian businesspeople
20th-century German businesspeople
21st-century German businesspeople
Friedrich Karl