Coke, guns, prison
Veltins’ son demands hundreds of millions from inheritance
March 25, 2024, 1:12 p.m
Carl-Clemens Veltins leads a wild, sometimes criminal life. After a stay in prison, he now lives as an unemployed person near Berlin. Veltins no longer wants to accept that his sisters inherited the billion-dollar brewery company and that he came away empty-handed.
A childhood in material luxury but without human warmth. As a teenager, he stole from his mother, later failed attempts as an entrepreneur, arms and drug dealing, several convictions and two years in prison. When Carl-Clemens Veltins talks about his life, it sounds like a script for a gangster film and not like the chronicle of a Sauerland business family. Now, at the age of 61, the Veltins’ black sheep is fighting for his share of the family fortune.
Carl-Clemens Veltins, according to his own account in several interviews, including in the “Bunte” and the “Handelsblatt”, was “immorally” deprived of his compulsory share of the family’s million-dollar fortune by his own mother. It was in 1980 on the morning after his 18th birthday and a correspondingly wild party, the “Handelsblatt” quotes from Veltins’ description. Rosemarie Veltins, sole owner of the family business, woke up her son and, “half sober”, persuaded him to sign a waiver of inheritance with the notary. His mother told him it was “pro forma,” “to secure the company so that it doesn’t go bankrupt.”
In the years that followed, Carl-Clemens led a – to put it mildly – unsettled life. He didn’t care about the family business. Among other things, he founded a short-lived large-scale disco in Leipzig after reunification. Bought weapons from Soviet soldiers, consumed and traded cocaine. After several suspended sentences, as he describes it himself, Veltins was finally sentenced to two years in prison in 2005 for drug trafficking and possession of an automatic rifle. He now lives as an unemployed person near Berlin.
Veltins’ mother generously supported Veltins financially until her death in 1994. He receives a total of several million marks. As he later learns from her will, this means that all of Rosemarie Veltins’ inheritance claims from her only son have been paid for. “My son Carl-Clemens Veltins has already received sufficient donations from me during his lifetime, so that, taking all the circumstances into account, further donations to him by inheritance or legacy are not justified. He and his descendants are excluded from legal succession,” The “Handelsblatt” quotes from the will. Carl-Clemen’s sisters Susanne and Frauke inherit the brewery.
According to his own statements, Carl-Clemens Veltins has received around three to four million euros since he came of age. However, he is entitled to more – much more. Veltins is a group with an annual turnover of 441 million euros. Forbes magazine classifies shareholder Susanne Veltins as a billionaire.
In 2016, Carl-Clemens made his first attempt to claim his compulsory share out of court with the help of a lawyer. Unsuccessful. Now the major law firm has hired Grant Thornton and filed a lawsuit. His lawyer is convinced of Veltins’ claim: “There is no doubt that Mr. Veltins was taken advantage of,” he tells the “Handelsblatt”. All children would be entitled to a “minimum share in the inheritance”. “The systematic and complete exclusion of Mr. Veltins was therefore immoral,” said the lawyer. What is particularly serious is that “the mother took advantage of the complete innocence and trust of the son, who was inexperienced in business, to his detriment.” Carl-Clemens is entitled to at least a compulsory share – that would be half a third of his mother’s assets. According to his estimate, that would be a three-digit million amount.
Veltin’s sisters and the company have not yet commented on the lawsuit or the descriptions about the family in Carl-Clemens’ interview. When asked by the various media outlets in which he spoke, the answer was unanimous: “Traditionally, people don’t comment on private questions.”