19 Facts About Reinhard Mohn

Reinhard Mohn was a German billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

In 1887, his grandfather, Johannes Reinhard Mohn, had taken over the management of the printing and publishing house from his father-in-law, Heinrich Bertelsmann, son of Carl Bertelsmann.

On 5 May 1943, Reinhard Mohn became a US prisoner of war, and in mid-June, he was taken to the United States, to Camp Concordia, an internment center in Kansas for German prisoners of war.

Reinhard Mohn initially took an apprenticeship as a bookseller, and later joined his father's business.

Reinhard Mohn's father, Heinrich Mohn, had come under the scrutiny of British occupation authorities because he was a supporting member of the SS, because he had donated to other Nazi organizations, and for other reasons.

Later that year, Reinhard Mohn married Elisabeth Scholz, with whom he had had an affair since the 1950s and fathered three children in the 1960s.

In 1947, Mohn took over the management of the C Bertelsmann publishing company, which had been largely destroyed by bombing raids during World War II.

In 1971, Reinhard Mohn transformed the family company into a joint stock corporation.

Reinhard Mohn became chairman of the executive board, and in this position continued a corporate culture based on partnership, the essential component of which involves dialogue between management and employees.

In 1981, Reinhard Mohn moved from the executive board to the supervisory board, which he chaired for another ten years, still remaining involved in business operations.

In 1977, Reinhard Mohn established the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung, initially endowed with capital of 100,000 Deutsche Mark.

Reinhard Mohn supported the management-driven concept of an operating foundation, independently developing and managing projects.

Reinhard Mohn directed the Bertelsmann Stiftung to help fund the improvement of the Gutersloh City Library and established the Carl Bertelsmann Prize.

Reinhard Mohn massively increased the Bertelsmann Stiftung's budget in the 1990s.

In 1979, a managing director was hired; from 1983, Reinhard Mohn was supported by an Advisory Board, and in 1993, the Executive Board was expanded.

Reinhard Mohn wrote several books and magazine articles in which he dealt with topics concerning society and business.

In 2008, his last work was published as "A Global Lesson", in which Reinhard Mohn provided an autobiographical account of the formative elements of his own life.

Reinhard Mohn was criticized for how he dealt with the National Socialist past of Bertelsmann.

The structures set up by Reinhard Mohn were alleged to have saved his family billions in inheritance tax.