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Germany’s Richest Man Donates 300 Million Euros to Hamburg Opera

By Sara Schabas on January 13, 2025

Klaus-Michael Kühne
Klaus-Michael Kühne (Photo: Kühne Logistics University)

The billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne donated €300 million to the Hamburg Opera. Kühne’s donation will fund the creation of a new opera house for the company.

Was ist los: Over in Germany, the country’s richest man, billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne has donated a landmark €300 million to fund the creation of a new opera house for the Hamburg Opera. Kühne previously helped to fund the creation of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Klaus-Michael Kühne’s fortune is estimated at $44 billion USD. The grandson of the founder of the transport and logistics company Kuehne + Nagel, Klaus-Michael Kühne holds a 20% share in Lufthansa as well as massive shares in the Hamburg HSV soccer club, Hapag-Lloyd, Brenntag, and the company that owns the Greyhound bus company.

A look back in time…: The Kühne family history is not without its controversies. During WWII, Klaus-Michael Kühne’s father and uncle ousted their Jewish business partner and profited from the Nazi regime’s persecution of Jews by transporting looted Jewish property across Western Europe. Klaus-Michael Kühne—who was born in 1937–has claimed that his father “wasn’t a Nazi.” Yet, Kühne has refused to open the Kuehne + Nagel archives from during the war, as many other German companies did.

As cultural memory of the Holocaust fades, it’s important to acknowledge the complicated history of the corporations that so influence our world. Transparency might be a good place to start.

Sara Schabas
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