In many ways, the richest people in Germany are no different from the poor rest. There are benefactors among them, but also angry know-it-alls, scientists and inventors who have become rich with their inventions, others have simply traded in potatoes or clothes.

The density of heirs is high.

And then there are those that don't exist.

Many hide from the public – but almost all fail at it.

Vanity often prevails, sometimes even a court date cannot be kept secret.

A small group, however, have actually completed the phantom existence.

Its members "do not take place in public", as it is called today: no appearances, no photos, no comments.

Whether they remain silent for understandable reasons or just because they want to save on taxes, that too remains their secret.

The Benckiser heirs of the Reimann family are among them.

Nothing is publicly known about the billionaire siblings from Ludwigshafen, not even their citizenship.

Bernd Freytag

Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.

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Günter Lehmann also belongs to the small, fine Phantom Group.

That he is now of public interest at all is due to his son Kevin.

His father signed his shares in the Karlsruhe drugstore chain dm a while ago, which is why the 19-year-old Filius is now the youngest billionaire under the age of thirty, according to calculations by the American magazine "Forbes".

Americans estimate his fortune at $3.3 billion.

Lehmann is ousting the twenty-three-year-old American glamor daughter and fashion entrepreneur Kylie Jenner, who, according to Forbes, is said to have been the youngest billionaire in the world in 2020.

How Forbes calculated Lehmann's net worth - dm is unlisted and the owner is unlikely to have faxed them his tax return - will also remain a secret.

Undeniably, the ranking draws attention year after year, and that's exactly what the Lehmanns don't want.

In any case, there is no comment from the company.

Only parts of the history are publicly known: Father Lehmann was the owner of the Pfannkuch trading group, which is said to have owned more than 200 branches in southern Germany and Saxony at its best, including Kolossa supermarkets that older Baden residents might still be familiar with.

If you believe the "Karlsruhe Wiki", Pfannkuch not only traded, but also produced meat himself, owned a winery and roasted coffee.

In any case, Lehmann sold the group to Spar in 1997 – for allegedly 200 million German marks, parts of the company later ended up at Walmart.

Even from his "active" time little is known about Günther Lehmann.

In the mid-1990s, the “Lebensmittel-Zeitung” once reported that he sometimes behaved like a Roman emperor at headquarters.

"Thumbs up, thumbs down, just as the company patriarch likes."

It would certainly be wrong to judge him from this point of view.

Nevertheless, the question remains as to how he got along with dm founder Götz Werner, who not only made his anthroposophically inspired worldview the leitmotif of his company, but later his public mission in the fight for an unconditional basic income.

Already in 1973, Lehmann had a stake in dm.

After the opening of the second branch, Werner, the bustling druggist's son, lacked the money for further expansion.

It was a matter of urgency, as the fixed prices for drugstore products had only just been lifted, creating the basis for rapid growth.

Lehmann gave money and received half of the shares in return.

Today dm is the largest drugstore in Europe, with almost 3,900 branches, more than 12 billion euros in sales and 66,000 employees.

Half of it belongs to Kevin David Lehmann.

His father, who turned eighty last year, is said to have signed it over to him some time ago.

Götz Werner passed away at the beginning of February.

His son Christoph now runs the business.

The Lehmanns were never in management.