Not since Kaisers, Hindenburgs, Ludendorffs, Von Tirpitzes and Bethmann-Hollwegs ceased to shake the Fatherland has Germany been so profoundly moved by an individual. The death of Hugo Stinnes in Berlin following an operation for gallstones which was complicated by pleural pneumonia, stirred the whole country to the complete exclusion of all else.
Hugo Stinnes, 54 years of age, was an emperor of finance, a tsar of industry, a king of business. His minions were princes and grand-dukes, his serving men were lords. His interests were as far-flung as the seven seas. His business was no one thing in particular, but everything in general. He dealt in trusts of super-trusts or trusts of trusts of trusts. It has been said that "when you were in Germany the trains and ships on which you travelled, the hotels you lived at, the shops you bought from, the newspapers you read, the banks where you cashed your drafts, the food you received to eat and innumerable other things knew the Stinnes ownership or control."
His wealth is inestimable. Conservative calculations place his fortune at $250,000,000, but it might just as well be $250,000,000,000. No one knows how rich he was. In death as in life he still remains a man of mystery, with a fortune that would outrival the wildest dreams of a fairy prince.
When the end came Hugo Stinnes was fully conscious. During the afternoon he had indulged in a series of business and family chats with his family, had asked for the experts' (reparations) reports and was said to have been gratified "as he professed to see his own ideas among their recommendations." At nine o'clock in the evening he expired: next day Stinnes stocks on the Börse fell 25% and the name of Hugo Stinnes was on the tongue of every Deutschlander.
The success of Hugo Stinnes was due to chance and hard work. It was said of him that he "always invested his funds and hated men and money which remained idle." Herr Stinnes did not hate himself—he was busy, eternally busy. The bulk of his fortune was made during the War in supplying munitions to the Army, in exploiting Belgium during the long German occupation and in taking advantage of Germany's financial ruin. Before the War he was worth about $7,500,000 and some believe that he increased his wealth 100-fold during the past decade.
His grandfather, Mathias Stinnes, was a rich man. His father, Gustav Stinnes, was also rich. At 20 years of age Hugo inherited a steamboat business and a mine in Westphalia from his father. From that time on he began his scheme of creating vertical trusts founded upon the broad basis of raw materials. As years passed his millions increased, during the War they grew rapidly, and after the War they simply swelled up to grotesque proportions and in 1924 the man, Hugo Stinnes, had won a prestige by the force of cold cash greater than any other man in history.