Photo: Jan Voth / Bertelsmann Stiftung (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What Xavier Bettel is doing with this German billionaire – and what her fortune has to do with RTL Luxembourg.

She is one of the richest people in Germany – her fortune is estimated at 7 billion euros. Liz Mohn. What does Luxembourg have to do with her? Very simple: Luxembourg tax money (yes, there is such a thing!) is slowly pouring into the billions on this woman’s fortune. But who is she? And how did it get this far?

Like all the super-rich in this world, Liz Mohn of course did not work for her money. Some exploit, others defraud. Liz Mohn inherited – virtually tax-free. From her husband, Reinhard Mohn, who of course also inherited and who became rich as a Nazi during National Socialism, but that’s another story. What we actually wanted to tell here: Since the death of the alt-Nazi and Bertelsmann boss Reinhard Mohn in 2009, Liz Mohn has not only become a great heiress, but also sits on the board of directors of the Bertelsmann management company.

So what does this have to do with Luxembourg now? A lot. Because RTL Luxembourg belongs to Liz Mohn’s media empire, the Bertelsmann company. And RTL has the status of a public broadcaster, so that around 10 million euros in tax money flows to RTL every year. And because there is no public broadcaster behind RTL at all, but a private company with profit interests called Bertelsmann, this money flows through several detours to Bertelsmann, and therefore also to the main heiress, Liz Mohn. Luxembourgers have a brilliant quality broadcaster for this – RTL, known for its serious investigative pieces, commercial-free content and government-critical reporting.

For the fact that Mrs. Mohn so courageously managed to get this win-lose deal through, she naturally received an award. And from the people themselves: the Luxembourgers. Back in 2016, no less than Xavier Bettel tenderly placed a chain around the powerful billionaire’s neck. On it hung the „Komturkreuz in the Order of the Oak Leaf Crown of the Grand Duchy“. If you fell asleep in the middle of this excessively long three-part series, here’s the good news: you belong to RTL’s target audience! So you are one of Liz Mohn’s victims. The circle closes.

Bettel is, by the way, at most something like a D or F celebrity among the stars that Liz Mohn frequents so much. She knows Jänni and Männi, i.e. Merkel, Schröder, Steinmeier, Scholz. She has a media empire. Who wouldn’t be nice to her?

When you hear Mohn talk, she seems somehow senile, and above all she seems to say the same thing in every interview. But behind that lies a hard-working strategic brain. Liz Mohn is the founder of numerous foundations with „public utility“. With this she not only polishes her image, but above all avoids taxes. Tax money is only good if it reaches its own level.

So there is the „Liz Mohn Culture and Music Foundation“ and the „Liz Mohn Center“, but anyone who wanted to see something like narcissism behind these names should be ashamed, after all there is also the „Stiftung Deutsche Schlaganfall-Hilfe“. The most important, however, is the Bertelsmann Foundation, of which Liz Mohn is the president: one of the most influential foundations in Germany. A lobby association par excellence, which advocates the privatization of almost all public areas. So strong that many lawyers question the status of public utility.

After all: personally, Mrs. Mohn must be an extremely pleasant and empathetic person. In her memoirs, she tells how she raised her children to be profiteers with love from a very early age. When the children found flowers on the roadside, they had to develop a business out of it and sell the garbage. Simply heartwarming!