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The sum is almost incomprehensible.
Almost two percent of the continent's total economic output belonged more or less directly to one man: Jakob Fugger.
This is what the US journalist and finance expert Greg Steinmetz calculated in his book "The Richest Man Who Ever Lived" in 2015.
The values of 1525 were around 2.1 million guilders;
by today's standards, this would be a vague estimate of more than 600 billion euros.
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Source: WORLD
At least the second richest person today, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has “only” assets of just under 0.9 percent of the US gross domestic product: around 185 billion dollars.
Of course, it's still an unimaginable amount of money.
Bezos has now announced that it will retire from active business in the course of 2021.
But how did the other richest people in the world do it in their day?
For Jakob Fugger (1459–1525) the answer is simple - not at all.
He was at the height of his personal power and political influence in the early 1520s when problems arose with the Bohemian-Hungarian King Ludwig II.
In 1525, the young, not yet 20-year-old ruler from the Jagiellonian dynasty disliked the influence of the German businessman in ore mining, the key branch of his Hungarian rule.
So much so that he made a front against Fugger.
"Wedding portrait of Jakob Fugger and his wife Sybilla (1498)
Source: picture alliance / akg-images
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The Augsburg merchant, at that time already 66 years old, defended himself skillfully;
his biographer Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz judged: "Fugger's imaginative, active resistance lasted into the last days of his life, with the merchant fighting more for his company honor than for material interests." Compromise proposal back: "So Fugger died before a reconciliation was achieved in Budapest." On December 30, 1525 Jakob Fugger died in his native city.
John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) managed a better finish.
At its peak, his wealth was just over one and a half percent of total US economic output at the time.
Converted to 2021, that would be worth around $ 340 billion.
Rockefeller was a real self-made man - he didn’t vastly expand an acquired business like Jakob Fugger, but created his fortune from nothing.
He started as an assistant accountant and got into the oil business early on.
Crucial to the success of his Standard Oil Company was that it covered the entire value chain from extraction through logistics and refining to sales.
John D. Rockefeller and his wife 1912
Source: picture alliance / Heritage Imag
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Rockefeller relied on price fixing and the takeover of actual or possible competitors;
his corporate conglomerate thus became the archetype of the trust, the monopoly.
For a long time he was accompanied by complaints and soon also lawsuits from politics.
This is probably one of the reasons why Rockefeller withdrew from active business life in 1897 at the age of 58 and left the management of Standard Oil to his son and salaried managers.
From 1906 Standard Oil was crushed by the then US President Theodore Roosevelt;
the share price fell sharply.
But Rockefeller Sr. still believed in the future of his company, of which he was still the main shareholder, and bought shares at low prices.
When the oil industry began to boom soon afterwards, its wealth rose to an almost immeasurable level.
Rockefeller (like his son) was now primarily interested in philanthropy and in 1913 founded a foundation which he provided with the fairytale capital of 101 million dollars, a good tenth of his assets at the time.
Rockefeller died at the age of almost 98.
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Perhaps even more resolutely, a third man, one of the richest people of all time, Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) behaved.
He was four years older than John D. Rockefeller, like him came from a humble background and even immigrated to the United States when he was twelve.
At the age of 29, after experience in the high-tech industry of his time, telegraphy, and in the US federal administration in Washington, he started his own business.
Andrew Carnegie and his wife
Source: picture-alliance / United Archive
Understanding the importance and needs of the upcoming growth industry, the railroad, Carnegie invested in steel.
Within a few years he became one of the richest men in America.
He retired from business life for the first time as early as 1889, but had to return because his business partner and successor did not manage the company as he wanted.
At the age of 65 Carnegie then sold his company;
his fortune now almost matched that of Rockefeller.
After leaving for the first time, he had already formulated a big sentence: "The man who dies rich dies in shame." He actually donated the greatest part of his fortune.
Even so, his only daughter Margaret inherited more than enough never to have to live in poverty;
she was also the trustee of Carnegie Corporation in New York from 1934 to 1973, the foundation founded by her father in 1911.
What the 57-year-old Jeff Bezos will do in the future is currently still open.
It will be interesting to see which of the role models among the richest people in the world he will follow.
With the purchase of the “Washington Post” he has already proven that his activities are not just about profit, but also about promoting his image or simply acting as a patron.
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