Former SSman, founder of Metro trade megacorp kills self

[K. A. Pital]

Incurable illness, they said...

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - German billionaire Otto Beisheim, one of the founders of German retail group Metro , took his own life after being diagnosed with an incurable illness, his family company said on Monday.

He was found dead at his home near the Tegernsee lake in Bavaria on Monday morning.

The Beisheim Group said Otto Beisheim, 89, had lost hope after his diagnosis.

He helped introduce to Germany in the 1960s the concept of "cash and carry", where trade customers such as hotels and restaurants go to buy products in bulk.

The Metro group, now the world's fourth largest retailer, described him as a "pioneer" in a statement.

"With his self-service cash and carry concept, he revolutionised the sector in the mid 1960s," Metro Chief Executive Olaf Koch said.

Along with cash and carries, Metro also runs supermarkets, consumer electronic stores and department stores and had turnover of 66.7 billion euros ($89 billion) in 2012.

A spokeswoman for the Beisheim group said there were no plans to sell the billionaire's stake in Metro of just under 10 percent.

The stake made him the third largest shareholder in Metro after the Haniel and Schmidt-Ruthenbeck families, which together own 45.78 percent.

Beisheim's net worth was estimated at $3.3 billion by Forbes in March 2012, making him Germany's 22nd richest person.

Along with the stake in Metro, he was also behind the redevelopment of the Beisheim Center on Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, an office and shopping complex that houses five-star Ritz Carlton and Marriott hotels. ($1 = 0.7490 euros)

During WWII Beisheim served in nothing less than the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Yes, but after the Cold War began it didn't matter whether you had been a Nazi, as long as you were a capitalist. It meant you were one of the good guys.

[Sea Skimmer]

Being a Nazi or fascist was actually seen as beneficial when it came to forming all the top secret we literally burned the records to keep them more secret stay behind units. Nothing ever went wrong with this either, other then the terrorist bombings and thousands of missing mortars, rocket launchers and machine guns. Price of freedom.

But nice, it sounds like he was one of the earlier members of the Adolf Hitler division too, when it was still high on the purity list, before mass expansion and heavy attrition in combat completely diluted the super Aryan elite credentials of the early SS formations.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yes, and he was true to Nazi ideals until the bitter end, it seems.

[Simon_Jester]

What makes you say that, Duchess?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Euthanasia of those unable to materially contribute to society.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think you have to be a Nazi to be driven to suicide by the thought of irreversible mental or physical decline. You only have to be a Nazi to want to force it on everyone you think doesn't measure up.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It just struck me as an aesthetically perfect connection, though. It's hard to explain but I really felt chilled to the bone when I read the story and heard of his service in the SS.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

But you have to respect his decision to keep his integrity, and begin that eugenics program with himself. Because if you can't follow your words, why should the others do so when you order them around?

[fgalkin]

But you have to respect his decision to keep his integrity, and begin that eugenics program with himself. Because if you can't follow your words, why should the others do so when you order them around?

Not really. I see he took the easy way out once again. A typical fascist.

The world had become a slightly better place today.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[The Duchess of Zeon]

No, I don't respect the logical conclusion of a poisonous and evil ideology just because it is logical. Any value system, no matter how insane, can be pursued for internally consistent results. And that's what I felt this as, though perhaps I am mistaken: The final, internally consistent act of a brain irrevocably corrupted by a poisonous ideology.

[Scrib]

No, I don't respect the logical conclusion of a poisonous and evil ideology just because it is logical. Any value system, no matter how insane, can be pursued for internally consistent results. And that's what I felt this as, though perhaps I am mistaken: The final, internally consistent act of a brain irrevocably corrupted by a poisonous ideology.

I do. There's something about hypocrisy that riles. Granted if I had to choose between stopping the millions of hypocritical religious people and the fundamentalists that own up to their religion and raise their chin and say:"Yes? So what?" I'd obviously aim at the fundamentalists but I'm not gonna lie, following through is admirable in some vague way. It might not change anything practically, but whatever.

[Stark]

While its pretty fictional, it's a powerful vignette. A man moves away from his past but can never escape it - decades of normal life and he's one diagnosis away from the chanting crowds and the ultimate sacrifice.

[Scrib]

While its pretty fictional, it's a powerful vignette. A man moves away from his past but can never escape it - decades of normal life and he's one diagnosis away from the chanting crowds and the ultimate sacrifice.

What sacrifice?

[Stark]

Uh... suicide?

[Simon_Jester]

Since I'd never heard of the man in my life, I have literally no idea whether he stuck to any kind of Naziism for the 70 or so years that have passed since the war ended.

Was this the act of a guy who was obviously still a Nazi at heart when he was doing all sorts of corporate stuff in the '60s, '70s, and later?

Or was this the act of a basically ordinary 90-year-old man who gets a medical diagnosis of "you have six months to live and you'll spend four of them on life support" and decides to die now rather than later?

I'm still not seeing the evidence.

[Irbis]

But you have to respect his decision to keep his integrity, and begin that eugenics program with himself.

Himself?

Seeing his unit took part in between others Fabrikaktion (cleaning Germany of these pesky Untermenschen) and fought on Eastern front where SS units committed untold numbers of war crimes and other atrocities, I'd say no, not himself.

Was this the act of a guy who was obviously still a Nazi at heart when he was doing all sorts of corporate stuff in the '60s, '70s, and later?

I'm still not seeing the evidence.

How about the fact he never came clean with his past and willingly joined SS at height of 'racial purity'?

But then again, West Germany, unlike fervent claims to the contrary, was never really de-Nazified, save for a few show trials, so he had no need to change his heart or anything, just hide his beliefs a bit.

A (not so) fun fact - on recent discussion on death penalty in Poland, press described last public case of it in 1946. It was on another SS member, war criminal Arthur Greiser. Most of of his colleagues and superiors ran from justice to West Germany, to the best of my knowledge none of them even got a long prison sentence. Look up for example Wilhelm Koppe, who on his orders "solved" Jewish Ghetto "overcrowding" (up to 180.000 victims during WWII), or his another buddy Heinz Reinefarth, guilty of giving orders to execute as many as 200.000 Polish civilians during Warsaw Uprising, who for his trouble became Mayor and Landtag member. Both had cosy, "de-Nazified" lives without any sort of trial

[madd0ct0r]

bit puzzled by the glee and 'obviously he did cos he was a nazi'

90 year old guy is given diagnosis that his brain will slowly rot away until all the remains is a panic stricken self trapped inside brain. (my version, since we don't know what it was he was diagnosed with. Could have been a simpler 3 years of horrible pain followed by death)
Guy chooses to go out under his own steam. I suspect i would too.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Sorry people, I meant to be sarcastic. Good riddance to the bastard, and to hell with him. Hope he fries.

Irbis, I remember a sort-of anecdote from the Yalta Conference. At one point, Stalin said that fifty thousand war criminals had to be shot. Churchill balked and Roosevelt, trying to humor both of them, suggested "not fifty, perhaps forty-nine". I can't find anything about its historical veracity right now.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I was not trying to claim there was evidence for it as such. It just was, without a doubt, the first thing that came to mind when I read the article, and very insistently at that. "Oh wow, he offed himself to not be a social burden, exactly like his Third Reich would have insisted upon at its ultimate conclusion" was just the first thing that ran through my mind.

[Simon_Jester]

I suspect that the Nazis would have been hypocritical in that, as in so many other things.

Long life at state expense for the favored, short death at state expense for the disfavored...

[K. A. Pital]

It's a general fascist thing. "To my friends everything, to my enemies the law" and all that.

[Scrib]

Uh... suicide?

He euthanised himself. What has he sacrificed? And for who?

[fgalkin]

I was not trying to claim there was evidence for it as such. It just was, without a doubt, the first thing that came to mind when I read the article, and very insistently at that. "Oh wow, he offed himself to not be a social burden, exactly like his Third Reich would have insisted upon at its ultimate conclusion" was just the first thing that ran through my mind.

Don't be silly, Mari, he's a billionaire. Even if he becomes a complete vegetable, he will never become a social burden, as he can afford the best possible medical care for the remainder of his life from his savings alone.

This isn't some kind of attempt to live up to Nazi ideals of racial purity. Rather, he is following the old Nazi adage of "when in doubt, take the easy way out." Just like his Fuhrer.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin