Giving up an inheritance is not common in the world we live in, especially when it comes to assets worth €4.2 billion (about R$21.9 billion at current prices). Marlene Engelhorn, 30, rose to fame after deciding to turn down 90% of that amount because she felt she didn’t deserve to receive the money. But who is she anyway and who left this legacy?
The literature student in Vienna and descendant of the founders of BASF, a multinational chemical company with sales of 78 billion euros, Marlene is part of the organization Millionaires for Humanity, a group that works to ensure that the superrich are “taxed the same way as workers”. She will inherit when her grandmother Traudl EngelhornVechiatto, 95, dies.
As well as being part of Millionaires for Humanity, she is one of the founders of Tax Me Now, a group of millionaires demanding higher wealth taxes. At the Davos Economic Forum, the heiress scoffed at the American phrase “In God We Trust” and held up a sign that read “In Tax We Trust”.
Surprisingly, she waived the money she will receive as earnings.
“It’s not a question of will, it’s a question of justice. I didn’t do anything to get this legacy. It was sheer luck in the birth lottery. Coincidence,” he said. The decision was supported by her grandmother, who gave her all the “freedom” she wanted.
Peter Engelhorn’s widow, Traudl’s fortune is also inherited by the exhusband and greatgrandson of Friedrich Engelhorn, the founder of BASF in 1865. Peter was a part owner of the German group BoehringerMannheim, which was sold to the Swiss pharmaceutical company HoffmannLa Roche in 1977.
Another factor that draws attention is BASF’s connection to the Nazi regime. In 1925, the chemical companies Bayer and Basf merged with four other companies to form IG Farbenindustrie, which used forced labor in its German factories during the regime, with around 4,500 people coming from concentration camps to build a rubber factory in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Around 38,000 prisoners, most of them Jews, were forced to work on the site between 1941 and 1945. When they could no longer work, they were executed in the concentration camp. More than 30,000 are said to have died.
Marlene has never worked in the family business and said she wanted to be fair with the money.
When the announcement was made, I realized I couldn’t be really happy. I thought to myself: “Something is wrong”.
In interviews, Marlene scoffed at the origin of the fortune. “I don’t know the exact history and origin of the fortune, or how much work it took to amass it. What I can say is that it wasn’t because of my work.”
She is also a member of the Guerrila Foundation, an organization that unites social activists to collectively contribute to meaningful social change leading to a circular economy, with a democratic society that prioritizes social and environmental wellbeing.
The foundation’s website states that she has already held workshops in schools to explain LGBTQI+ realities and that she has only recently begun her journey into the world of radical philanthropy “to infuse a future legacy with wisdom and strength.” to use”.