Thirty-two-year-old Marlene Engelhorn, a descendant of the founder of the major German chemical and pharmaceutical company BASF, is giving away the bulk of her inheritance to organisations chosen by a group of 50 Austrian citizens selected for the task earlier this year.
The BBC reports that €25 million will go to 77 organisations, charities and think tanks dealing with a range of issues, including environmental protection, education, integration, health and social issues, as well as poverty, homelessness and affordable housing in Austria.
A million euros went to the Momentum Institute, a left-wing think tank, and Attac Austria, which the BBC describes as opposing neoliberal economic policy and “deregulated financial markets”.
The recipients were chosen by a panel picked by a pollster to be representative of Austrian society.
In a statement, Engelhorn said: “A large part of my inherited wealth, which elevated me to a position of power simply by virtue of my birth, contradicting every democratic principle, has now been redistributed in accordance with democratic values.”
She inherited millions when her grandmother, Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, died in September 2022. Forbes magazine estimated Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto’s wealth at $4.2bn (€3.8bn).
The BBC reports that the sum Engelhorn retains is undisclosed, but back in 2021, she said she wanted to hand out at least 90% of her wealth because she had done nothing to earn it and had merely struck lucky in a “birth lottery”.
According to Wikipedia, Engelhorn studied German language and literature at the University of Vienna, but did not obtain a degree. In an interview published by Le Monde, Engelhorn said she would like to work as a proofreader for a publishing company.
[Image: Jan Zappner / re:publica, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133943808]