Helmut Horten
Encyclopedia
Helmut Horten in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
) was a German entrepreneur who built up and owned the fourth-largest chain of department stores in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
- the Horten AG
Horten AG
Horten AG was a German department store chain founded by Helmut Horten in 1936 and headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany....
.
The son of a judge he was apprenticed in a Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
department store belonging to Leonhard Tietz
Leonhard Tietz
Leonhard Tietz was born March 3, 1849 in Birnbaum an der Warthe, Province of Posen, Prussia and died November 14, 1914)...
before working for the Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
department store of the Gebrüder Alsberg (Alsberg brothers) company. When the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
came to power in 1933, Horten was able to acquire the company from the Jewish owners, Strauß and Lauter, who fled to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He was aided in this transaction by the banker Wilhelm Reinhold of the Commerz- and Disconto-Bank
Commerzbank
Commerzbank AG is the second-largest bank in Germany, after Deutsche Bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main.-Activities:Commerzbank is mainly active in commercial bank, retail banking and mortgaging. It suffered reversals in investment banking in early 2000s and scaled back its Securities unit...
. The bank was to become a partner in the newly formed Horten & Co.
Until 1939 Horten acquired several other department stores and enjoyed a good relationship with the Nazi government despite the fact that his grandfather, the (later) Catholic saint Titus Maria Horten died in custody in 1936. Horten was able to acquire the distribution rights to certain goods which were scarce due to war.
After the Second World War Horten was interned by the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in 1947 in Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and industry in the south...
. Following a hunger strike he was released in 1948. He soon continued with the consolidation and expansion of his company, which he still owned. Horten introduced Germany's
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
first supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
after a visit to the United States, the copying of this business model expanding the group quickly. In 1968, with 25,000 staff and turnover of €
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
1Bn, he floated the group on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Frankfurt Stock Exchange
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is the world's 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. Located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is owned and operated by Deutsche Börse, which also owns the European futures exchange Eurex and the clearing company...
.
In 1972 Horten sold his majority stake and retired from the business, which controversially lost a great deal of value soon afterwards. In 1994 the chain was bought by Kauhof Holding AG, merged in to the German retail group METRO AG
Metro AG
Metro AG is a diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It has the largest market share in its home market, and is one of the most globalised retail and wholesale corporations. It is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues . In English...
in 1996.
Personal life
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n Heidi Jelinek, a woman 32 years his junior, in a hotel bar in Velden am Wörthersee - the couple married on July 23, 1966 in Düsseldorf-Lohausen
Düsseldorf-Lohausen
Lohausen is an urban borough in the north of Düsseldorf, in neighbourhood to Stockum, Kaiserswerth, Unterrath, Wittlaer, the river Rhine and Ratingen. The airport of Düsseldorf is in Lohausen....
and moved to Croglio
Croglio
Croglio is a municipality in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-Geography:Croglio has an area, , of . Of this area, or 20.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 70.5% is forested...
in the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
of Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
at the end of 1968. Horten enjoyed living the life of a wealthy man – he owned a BAC 1-11 as a private jet, a series of private yachts named after Carinthia
Carinthia (state)
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...
, and a villa in Mülheim an der Ruhr. In Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
, the centre of his business activities, he made donations to the tennis club, the carnival and the zoo. The Helmut Horten Stiftung promotes medical research.
His widow inherited his $1 billion fortune, and lives today between homes in Croglio
Croglio
Croglio is a municipality in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-Geography:Croglio has an area, , of . Of this area, or 20.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 70.5% is forested...
, Lyford Cay
Lyford Cay
Lyford Cay is a private gated community located on the western tip of New Providence Island, Bahamas. Considered one of the world's wealthiest and most exclusive neighborhoods, the Lyford Cay Club was built during the latter part of the 1950s by prominent Canadian businessman Edward Plunkett Taylor...
, by the Wörthersee
Wörthersee
The Wörthersee is an alpine lake in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia.-General facts:The lake is elongated, about 20 km long and 1–2 km wide. It stretches from the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt in the east to Velden in the west...
in Austria and a penthouse in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Rated as the world's 224th-richest person by Forbes magazine, she also commissioned and owns one of the world's largest yachts, in the Carinthia VII
Carinthia VII
The yacht Carinthia VII was built in the Lurssen yard in 2002 and refurbished in the same yard 3 years later. It was registered in Bremen, Germany and sails under the with the home port of Venice, Italy...
.