German Billionaire Adolf Merckle Commits Suicide

Published on January 6th, 2009

German Billionaire Merckle Commits Suicide – WSJ.com — Did he leave a suicide note? None is mentioned. The fact that he was in the cement business gives me pause as to what really happened. Not that I want to stereotype anyone.

The family of Adolf Merckle said the German billionaire committed suicide after his business empire got into trouble because of the global financial crisis.

A brief family statement Tuesday did not give details on the circumstances of the 74-year-old investor’s death. It said the problems his holdings suffered due to the financial crisis “broke” him and “he ended his life.”

21 users responded in " German Billionaire Adolf Merckle Commits Suicide "

Subscribe to this post comment rss or trackback url

# 1 Troublemaker said, on January 6th, 2009 at 8:56 am

Good… I look forward to more stories like this over the next few years.

# 2 Marc said, on January 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am

Poor guy. Should’ve read more news on what’s going on in Gaza. Now those are some real problems.

# 3 green said, on January 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am

Adolf Merckel? Funny name since Angela Merkel is Hitlers’ test tube baby.

# 4 pjakobs said, on January 6th, 2009 at 9:34 am

he made a big loss when gambling on VW shares. He speculated on falling prices and was hit by VW peaking at 1400EUR or so because Porsche and Lower Saxony together held all but about 6% of the shares.

# 5 RBG said, on January 6th, 2009 at 10:07 am

Then there are those with terminal illnesses and having nothing who would give away two of Merekle’s fortunes for another year.

RBG

# 6 Personality said, on January 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am

Note to self, Don’t name son Adolf! Suicide will ensue.

# 7 Special Ed said, on January 6th, 2009 at 11:04 am

I didn’t understand the picture, did he jump in front of the train?

# 8 Rich said, on January 6th, 2009 at 11:19 am

Wow! What a skewed point-of-view the extreme rich must have. I would never off myself over any amount of lost fortune.

# 9 cgp said, on January 6th, 2009 at 11:35 am

Nice train

# 10 bobbo said, on January 6th, 2009 at 12:26 pm

So what happened here? He went from a billion to only $550 Million or what?

I went from $12.50 to zero and I’m holding up.

You gotta focus on what you HAVE, not what you don’t have.

# 11 sargasso said, on January 6th, 2009 at 1:08 pm

Candles that burn twice as bright …

# 12 Special Ed said, on January 6th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

I don’t mean to be hung up on the picture, but, when he offed himself did his wife pull a train? Did he die of lead poisoning (a bullet)? Inquiring minds…

# 13 Dustin said, on January 6th, 2009 at 7:05 pm

Who cares about a german billionaire, people that put this on the news instead of the real crisis in this nation need to pay attention to the world around them!

# 14 andrewj said, on January 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

Jumped in front of a train.

# 15 Terry said, on January 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

RTFA people. He jumped in front of a train. He lost about 2 billion Euros in as little as four weeks. Seems strange to me, since he still had more than 3 Billion Euro in assets even after the loss, but I also had a dear friend end his life on New Year’s Eve over the same issue, but his small business failed and he was over $70,000 in debt. I am at a loss for words over both of these unfortunate endings, but it was their personal choice in dealing with these circumstances.

# 16 BubbaRay said, on January 6th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

Depression is serious stuff. There must be some backstory here that’s not revealed. Guess we’ll never know.

As far as this being news, it seems the rise and fall of the rich and famous sells advertising. Go figure.

# 17 Dee said, on January 7th, 2009 at 1:20 am

To clear things up…he commiteed suicide because he was afraid that he would lose 2 of his 3 companies and the workers would lose their jobs. And he did leave a suicide note that he can’t deal with that situation that he would lose what he had built up over years. His family will carry on what he started and got a bank loan to save those companies (which Mr. Merckle initiated before he killed himself). Even though he was rich he was concerned about his employees. No need to leave smart remarks.
@Dustin…
YOUR national crisis is of course far more important than the wars being fought worldwide…and what we read most about from the US is who is screwing who in the entertainment business.

# 18 Deep-Thought said, on January 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am

Update:

He did leave a message to his family.

He did not jump in front of a ICE high speed train (as seen on the picture).
The track he ‘abused’ was only a local train.
(German news source with picture of the ‘high speed’ track)
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article2985843/Menschen-weinen-auf-der-Strasse-um-Adolf-Merckle.html

And if anyone is interested. He would not have died poor. Strange.

# 19 FMB said, on January 9th, 2009 at 3:23 am

WOW…Not very smart for a rich guy…Tell me somebody please…Why hasn’t Madoff been murdered yet? Seriously, the sh!t-eating grin on that guys face ensures he has a very painful karma death coming his way…Why didn’t Merckle pay somebody to torture and slowly kill Madoff instead of offing himself?

And yeah can we please pay attention to the real death happening in Gaza right now that the world is playing hide the head in the sand about? How many Israelites has Hamas killed with their rockets? Versus how many Palestinians has Israel killed this week? And Israel won’t let the media into Gaza? I seriously don’t know what the solution is and I understand Israel feeling squeezed, but this action has pretty much ENSURED a whole new generation of frothing mad Palestinian children growing up to be jihad suicide bombers.

# 20 Advice.. said, on January 13th, 2009 at 11:52 pm

People need to have faith in God.. They think that it’s they who have the control but they don’t..

# 21 wandjina said, on January 19th, 2009 at 10:11 pm

cant believe you lot taking the piss out of this Bloke….You know he survived 74 years which is alot more than some. Not only that. He watched 650,000 people in his home town die in WW2. He worked in a chemical factory while the war was on. He, like alot of people, didn’t have anything. He started working for A company making generic brand aspro’s and the like…From there he turned an 80 strong employed company in to a company that employed 20,000. He Helped his country pull out of the depression it was in after the war…Employing some 7% of the working population….
For your info. He Owed almost 19 Billion
Euro…..That was what he was in Debt for….He didn’t have a spare billion laying about somewhere. He made some bad mistakes and the worst one he made was the last one he made… Its easy for people that don’t have money to sit here saying i’d do this or i’d do that…But when your use to living the life style your use to and its about to be taken away from you. There can appear to be no light at the end of the tunnel…He wasn’t the sort of person that would flash his wealth about or anything…He was really down to earth…
Imagine if you lost your job..! Where’s the next pay packet coming..? Can you afford to pay that mortgage..? Is there any chance i can get another job…? Put yourself is someone else’s shoes…!
Old Soul…..You are Sadly missed…..
Love wandjina

Leave Your Reply Below...

Comment Moderation is Active, so if your comment doesn't
show up immediately, please don't submit it again.

Special Deals 4U

25% off eHarmony subscription with code EHTECH
12-percent discount forever with code TECH
10-percent discount and free month using TECH10
10-percent or 30 dollars off weekly car rental!
Get 10-percent discount on car rental!
Get 10% off rental cars!
Get 10% off Dollar rentals!
Discounts on domain names!