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German Billionaire commits suicide because of Financial Crisis


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Adolf Merckle suicide: German who lost £1bn in the financial crisis jumps under train

Adolf Merckle, a German businessman who lost £1 billion in the financial crisis, has committed suicide.

[smaller]Guardian.co.uk | 5:05PM GMT 06 Jan 2009 | Link[/smaller]

Merckle, 74, one of the world's richest men and the head of a drugs and engineering conglomerate, was found dead on the railway line not far from his home in the small village of Blauberen near Ulm in southwestern Germany on Monday night.

German police confirmed a suicide note had been found and said "no third party is being sought in conjunction with his death".

His family blamed the economic downturn for his death.

"The economic state of distress of his companies caused by the financial crisis and the associated uncertainties of the last weeks, as well as the powerlessness not to be able to act anymore broke this passionate family entrepreneur, and he terminated his life," a statement read.

Merckle was one of the richest men in the world last year with a fortune pegged by Forbes at over £6 billion ($9billion).

The crash and his poor choice of betting on the German DAX late last year are thought to have dramatically cut that fortune.

Reports in Germany spoke of the global financial crisis as "breaking" Merckle.

Last month, his business empire stood on the brink of collapse as the Royal Bank of Scotland baulked at a further bridging loan of £360 million (400 million euros) to rescue him.

Merckle controlled the pharmaceutical group Ratiopharm, cement company HeidelbergCement and one of Europe's biggest wholesale drug distributors, Phoenix.

He also had an investment firm which lost £1bn in November when VW shares went through the roof during the takeover battle with Porsche and he bet the wrong way. Media reports put him as the biggest single loser in the debacle and it sent him into a tailspin of depression.

Merckle lived in the southern German village and was an avid mountain climber whose only luxury was to go on expeditions to the Andes or Himalayan mountains.

Born in eastern Dresden in 1934 and a father of four children, Merckle inherited in the late 1960s a small pharmaceutical company from his father that employed 80 people.

Little by little, he built an empire, with sales of around £31 billion (35 billion euros) and employing more than 100,000 workers.

Former Ratiopharm director Heinrich Zinken told Manager Mag azin that Merckle was "greedy, envious, and held grudges".

Sources said his depression was "too deep, his losses too great to bear".

He left behind his wife Ruth, sons Ludwig, Philipp Daniel and Tobias and a daughter, Jutta.

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yeah, I'm not really finding the horror in those circumstances that would cause someone to feel that they should take their own life. He was probably such a mean, sad Scrooged person in the first place, and his family is grasping at something else to blame.

Or he got pushed.

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He had 6 billion. He lost 1 billion. That leaves him with 5 billion.

Poor guy?

I think it's more complex than that, he was involved with his private money into most of his companies too...

I know that at least two are close to insolvency :P

and as far as I read the news reports (I don't know him well), he simply wasn't egoistical enough to just walk away from that with the money he had left :P

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He had 6 billion. He lost 1 billion. That leaves him with 5 billion.

Poor guy?

It might be that the financial downturn means that his companies have to make thousands of people redundant and place hardship on those families. Maybe that might cause a guy to become suicidally depressed. Even the comfortably rich can have a social conscience, you know? Mental illness is no respecter of financial and social circumstances.

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I think it's more complex than that, he was involved with his private money into most of his companies too...

I know that at least two are close to insolvency :P

and as far as I read the news reports (I don't know him well), he simply wasn't egoistical enough to just walk away from that with the money he had left :P

But he was egoistical enough to commit suicide, despite having a family.

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with my "he wasn't egoistical enough to walk away" comment I meant exactly what you were saying with "Even the comfortably rich can have a social conscience" and "Mental illness is no respecter of financial and social circumstances"

... at least after how I interpreted them ;)

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Based on my experiences among victims of suicide - that is to say the surviving friends and family - yes, the facts are that takers of their own lives do not rationally consider those left behind, who must somehow fit into their existing responsibilities the repair of the torn fabric caused as a result of the suicide. The partaker has ended their frustrations, but the transferrence of those frustrations (and more) are only just beginning for those left behind, lasting the remainder of their lifetimes. To my thinking, this is the highest form of selfishness.

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Suicide is the highest form of egotistical, self-absorbed activity one can administer.

However heartfelt this statement of opinion, it withstands only minimal analysis, before crumbling to dust within seconds.

First, looking at it from a purely logical and somewhat pedantic point of view: how does suicide compare with the act of taking the life of another person- possibly "innocent" and unconnected with us in any way- in order to save ones own skin or further ones own ends? That must surely rank as a more egotistical and self-absorbed act? The suicide (often, but not always) considers himself inferior to others and expendable. The killer, on the other hand, is prepared to eliminate others, so that he may live on. Who is the self-absorbed egotist here? Where does that heroic individual who lays down his own life so that others may live fit into your condemnatory generalisation?

Secondly: you refer to "suicide" as though it were a fixed and consistent phenomenon which invariably behaves according to its template, rather than acknowledging any of the complexities of human existence, life and death.

What of the individual who commits suicide only after consulting his loved ones, and passes on with their love and blessings?

What of the individual who commits suicide because his self-esteem has been shattered by the ritual cruelty of those supposed to love and care for him?

What of the person who chooses to slip away quietly into the unknown, because there simply is no-one left in their world to care?

And so on.

the facts are that takers of their own lives do not rationally consider those left behind, who must somehow fit into their existing responsibilities the repair of the torn fabric caused as a result of the suicide.

Well, the selfish bas*ards. It might be worth considering that often, people in the grip of depression aren't thinking straight. It goes with the territory.

The partaker has ended their frustrations, but the transferrence of those frustrations (and more) are only just beginning for those left behind, lasting the remainder of their lifetimes.

This scenario may be true in some, even many cases. (I believe I covered such issues in my own piece of Creative Writing "To Die Now, Or Later"; a piece informed by my own experience of depression.)

But it is inappropriately glib to apply this as an accurate representation of all suicide cases; which, like snowflakes, are all slightly different from one another.

I'm not denying that people with depression can be self-absorbed; no doubt many of them are. But it seems both harsh and patently inaccurate to assert that, when they decide to bring an end to their pitiful existences, they are guilty of "the highest form of selfishness". At the time, they may not be concerned only about ending their own perceived suffering, but may be motivated by a temporary and deluded belief that they are doing everyone around them a favour. That may be tragic, but is not necessary an example of "selfishness", in my view.

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One merely has to look into the eyes of the close friends and close family members affected by suicide, observe the anchors they drag through the remainder of their lives, to know my premise is accurate that suicide is not only a non-solution, but an instigator of far greater personal calamities that may be carried by survivors for generations.

I am not asserting that those who take their lives have rationally given long range thought to the consequences of their actions and choose the hurtful route, nor am I cold to their afflicting circumstances. But stand by my assertion that suicide is the ultimate self absorbtion into nihilism that satisfies only the partaker, in a vast majority of real cases.

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One merely has to look into the eyes of the close friends and close family members affected by suicide, observe the anchors they drag through the remainder of their lives, to know ...

Indeed. You might see a similarly haunted look upon the face of a parent whose child was mown down by a fast and reckless driver, or the woman whose husband was knifed to death in an argument over a parking space. I'm not disputing that suicide may have a devastating impact on the loved ones left behind - on occasions, it was largely that which put me off- only your contention that it is the ultimate in selfishness. From the guy who thinks he owns the roads, kills an innocent bystander then leaves the scene so as not to face responsibility for his actions, to the political leader who sends young people off to die just to keep him/herself in a job, there are any number of examples of acts that I would consider more selfish than the suicide of an individual who no longer sees the benefit of his continued existence.

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Nah. Suicide is also used to avoid the consequences/responsibility of their actions. You hardly see people commit suicide at the top of their game. It'd have been very odd for this guy to commit suicide when he was at his richest... and I'm sure many were losing as he was winning and winning more (so I doubt he had a social conscience in this instance).

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