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With all his power and money, Hugo was a simple man delighting in simple things. "He would be captivated in the street," a writer said, "by the sight of a peddler's pack, and if he discovered a new kind of fountain pen or safety razor among the man's wares his excitement was almost boundless." He delighted in pulling huge rolls of bills out of his pocket with the gleeful remark: "See mine." It was the same when he walked into one of his hotels, read one of his newspapers, pointed to one of his banks. Yet there was never anything offensive in his manner.
Temperamentally, Herr Stinnes was homely, usually quiet and genial but often a hidden temper would explode with volcanic force. He never owned a dress suit until 1917 and was usually sloppily dressed. Asked what he would say when the French occupied his Ruhr house, he remarked: "They will say Stinnes' home is as shabby as his clothes."
Another view of the inflexible, indurate "King of Coke" was given by Dr. Ludwig Stein, an intimate acquaintance: "At the time of the death of Albert Ballin, the all-powerful director of the Hamburg-American Line, I had the opportunity to gauge the feelings of Stinnes. The telephone rang, and Stinnes was summoned to answer. Suddenly I saw him change color and reel. With tears in his eyes he returned and said: 'I have just received a message from Hamburg that my good friend Albert Ballin is dead. He was the surest and truest friend I had, not only in the commercial way but also personally.'"
Stinnes politico-industrial philosophy is shown with startling clarity by his own words:
"The German Government, no matter who leads it, always does stupid things."
"Frankly, I worship on the altar of big business."
"Gott sei dank! [God be thanked!] My children are interested only in business. Art and the theatre are as distasteful to them as they are to me."
"If the so-called rich people of Germany are dispossessed, the German people will starve to death. Immediate cheap production is absolutely necessary. Every strike is a murder of the people."
"Do the German people want to survive? Then the German people must work at least as much and as long as before the War. If they want to pay reparations also, then they must work longer. Whoever tells Germany that taxation of the so-called property class has a chance in the present situation, lies and deceives the people."
Herr Stinnes leaves a wife and five children to mourn him. The eldest, Dr. Edmund Hugo Stinnes, "a youth of engaging personality and winning urbanity," will share with his brother, Hugo Herman Stinnes, the control of the great Stinnes interests. The latter is known to the family as "Junior" and his father once remarked: "Junior is much more efficient and gifted than his father—he will succeed me."