Rudolf August Oetker (20 September 1916 – 16 January 2007) was a German entrepreneur and former member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

, who became a billionaire running his private food company Oetker-Gruppe, founded by his grandfather

August Oetker August Oetker (; January 6, 1862 – January 10, 1918) was a German inventor, food scientist and businessman. He is known as the creator of baking powder as a ready-to-use product, and also as the founder of the Dr. Oetker company. Biography E ...

Biography

Early life

Oetker served and volunteered in the Waffen-SS from 1941 to 1944. Rudolf Oetker became the president of his family-run business in 1944. The business was inherited from his grandfather, August Oetker, who invented a popular mixture of baking powder.

Career

Rudolf August Oetker elevated the company to a household name in Germany today. The Oetker-Gruppe was one of the symbols of the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

recovery effort in the country. Oetker retired as executive director in 1981, turning the position over to his son August Oetker (jr.). In 2006, his net worth was estimated by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' at US$8.0 billion.

Personal life

Oetker married three times and had eight children. His son

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...

became CEO in 2010. In 2014, the Oetker business empire was valued at $12 billion, and each of his eight children inherited an equal share of 12.5%, or about $1.5 billion: *Rosely Schweizer *August Oetker *Bergit Douglas *Christian Oetker *

Richard Oetker Richard Oetker (born 4 January 1951) is a German billionaire heir and businessman, who in 2010 became CEO of multinational food processing company Dr. Oetker. In 1976 he was kidnapped by Dieter Zlof, a Slovene-born mechanic, and only released af ...

*Alfred Oetker *Carl Ferdinand Oetker *Julia Oetker After discovering Oetker's Nazi past, his children hired a provenance researcher to investigate the origins of his art collection. They have begun returning artworks found to be stolen or looted to the heirs of their Jewish owners. In 2019 a painting by Carl Spitzweg was restituted to the heirs of Leo Bendel who had been looted and murdered by Nazis. The painting had been acquired through the Galerie Heinemann in Munich.

References

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External links