"None of your business"

Viennese heiress of millions threatened to cancel interview

Millionaire heiress Marlene Engelhorn has been campaigning for a fairer distribution of wealth in Austria for some time. Now she is distributing her own wealth. To this end, she has founded the initiative "Good Advice for Redistribution".

(Bild: APA/ROLAND SCHLAGER)

The German-Austrian social activist Marlene Engelhorn is the talk of the town because of the distribution of her million-dollar inheritance. However, she recently proved in a newspaper interview that she doesn't like talking about private matters and her past. She disliked the questions so much that she even threatened to break off the interview.

The "Spiegel" editors Florian Diekmann and Alexander Kühn asked her, for example, how the now 31-year-old grew up. "It's irrelevant. My unsympathetic answer is: That's none of your business." The last straw was the question of whether she had ever been denied a wish. Engelhorn: "Of course. But even that is irrelevant. If you don't want to work with me on the structural issue, we're moving so far away from the topic that I'm losing interest in this interview."

The focus on her person is an attempt to avoid dealing with the actual problem. "The right question was not: how did Engelhorn grow up, and is that desirable or not, or who knows? Instead, ask what lies at the heart of it." She is concerned with how wealth is distributed as a society. "Who has the power to decide that - and who doesn't? Or would you seriously claim that poverty is self-inflicted?"

If you don't want to work with me on the structural issue, we are moving so far away from the topic that I am losing interest in this interview.

Millionenerbin Marlene Engelhorn im „Spiegel“-Interview

Engelhorn found out about the million-dollar inheritance by email
The heated discussion then relaxed again and the interview continued. For example, Engelhorn revealed that she found out in an unusual way that her grandmother was going to bequeath her 25 million euros. "I received an email from the family's financial advisors," she said. Her grandmother herself had not told her. People don't talk about money in these circles, "they have it", said Engelhorn. "The advisors take care of it, that's what you pay them for. Incidentally, you inherit the family's financial advisors at the same time. It's not easy to break away from them."

Engelhorn also said that she hadn't expected the inheritance until the email in 2019: "If you're used to seeing a six-figure sum at most in your account, it's a shock." Her grandmother died in 2022.

Citizens' council decides on million-dollar inheritance
Engelhorn has become famous in recent years for announcing that she would give away the 25 million euros she inherited. Last weekend, the so-called "Good Council" began its work, a committee of 50 people initiated by her to represent Austrian society. Its task is to determine what happens to the inherited assets. A plan for the allocation of the money is to be drawn up over six weekends in Salzburg by June. "I have no influence on the outcome," says Engelhorn.

Employees on the committee receive 1,200 euros per weekend
10,000 people in Austria were contacted as potential participants for the panel, of which just under 1500 expressed an interest. According to the Foresight Institute, the people finally selected are representative of people over the age of 16 in Austria. According to Engelhorn, they will receive 1,200 euros per weekend. A further three million euros had been set aside for the organization, travel and accommodation costs as well as any childcare.

As Engelhorn emphasized, she wants to retire from the media at some point: "I think I have to in the long term. The attention and speaking power will ensure that I have sovereignty over the discourse. That's not smart. Otherwise I'll imagine that I have something to say about everything."

Engelhorn's great-great-great-great-grandfather Friedrich Engelhorn co-founded the chemical company BASF and sold it back in the 19th century. He used the proceeds of the sale to buy into the pharmaceutical company C.F. Boehringer und Söhne, later Boehringer Mannheim, which was sold to the Swiss company Roche in 1997.