GERMANY’S RICHEST MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 5

GERMANY’S RICHEST MAN.

HERR HUGO 6TINNES:

The Kaiser, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, have each successfully played their parts as the heroes of the German people, and have disappered from the stage. The place that they filled has now been taken by Herr Hugo Stinnes, a man of comparative humble birth, whose only part in the war was that of profiteer. He is now the wealthiest and most influential man in Germany, but is described by his enemies as the world's greatest war profiteer. He is a coal merchant and colliery owner, steel manufacturer, shipowner, the head of a vast newspaper trust, the proprietor of the most luxurious hotel in Berlin, and a merchant in oils, paper, skins, jute, peat, and manufactured goods of all descriptions. He is a Deputy in the Reichstag, but his voice is seldom heard there; he is the proprietor of over WO newspapers, but his name is seldom mentioned in any of them. But secretly he plays an‘ influential part in shaping the destinies of Germany. He is regarded as a powerful force, ’and the German people look up to him as the foremost figure in Germany. His plans and intentions are the subject of widespread gossip. Will he throw in his lot with the militarist party and attempt to restore the monarchy in German kingdoms, or will he support the Republican Government? He was a member of the German delegation summoned to meet the Allied statesmen at Spa in 1920, but he was so obstinate in his determination not to accede to the demand of the Allies with respect to the indemnity that he did the German cause more harm than good, and ultimately his colleagues on the delegation -found it necessary to repudiate his views and act in defiance of his determined obstinacy. Hugo Stinnes, who is now 50 years of age, is the son of a coal merchant, and tit the age of 23 had established himself in business in the German coal trade. He became the proprietor of several coal mines and several ships engaged in carrying coal to European ports. His fleet of ships increased, and when the war broke out he had extended his operations in the coal trade to the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. He was then estimated to be worth £2,000,000. The war gave him the opportunity to increase his fortune ten or twenty fold. He made enormous profits by carrying coal to Scandinavian countries, and when German troops occupied Belgium and Northern France, he made advantageous contracts with the German military authorities at the expense of the Belgian and French owners of the coal mines in these districts. He extended his operations into other commercial fields, and when a commercial

and industrial collapse followed the armistice and the revolution in Germany, he secured many business undertakings at bargain prices. He bought motor factories, warehouses, hotels, newspapers, and iron and steel mills. A correspondent of the Times, who has been visiting Germany, writes of this German millionaire: —“All publicity and notoriety are alien to him. His role is to be the secret cause, rather than to acknowledge himself the direct originator and leader of his countless enterprises. As a Deputy in the Reichstag, he is one of the most silent members, and prefers to speak through one of his henchmen. Rival newspapers publish from time to time particulars of some fresh coup which Stinnes has brought off in Germany, in Scandinavia, in Spain, in North or South America, but the numerous newspapers which he controls mentions his name but rarely. There is nothing in his appearance to reveal the man of genius. Just 50 years * old, medium height, and sturdily built, with black hair and beard that show up strongly against a rather sallow complexion, Hugo Stinnes is an inconspicuous figure as he slips in and out of the Hotel Adlon, his bowler hat slightly tilted on one side, one hand in his pocket, and one or two secretaries following hard on the heels of their chief, in his worn black coat and black bow tie. He stops to speak to no one. He has no time for small talk in the lounge with other guests. When he eats in the restaurant of the hotel, he leaves his place without ceremony, and goes straight from his meals to his suite, or to the waiting motor car outside. A relentless, efficient, cool, human calculating machine.”