More than three years after his disappearance in the Swiss Alps, the former head of the German Tengelmann trading group, Karl-Erivan Haub († 58), is officially dead. The decision of the Cologne District Court, by which the billionaire was declared dead, has been legally binding since Tuesday.
The district court announced that no complaint had been lodged against the decision within the deadline specified by the Disappearance Act. Karl-Erivan Haub, one of the richest Germans, set out on a ski tour in Zermatt alone in April 2018 and never returned. The family assumes that the then 58-year-old had a fatal accident on the Klein Matterhorn. In October last year, the family filed an application to declare Karl-Erivan Haub dead.
There was a long family argument
The Cologne district court had declared Haub dead in May. In the past few months there had been media reports about doubts about the death of the experienced skier. The court does not consider it provable. Such assumptions were based on “assumptions and non-verifiable documents,” it had established.
After Karl-Erivan Haub’s disappearance, his younger brother Christian took over the sole management of the multi-billion dollar retail group, which includes the textile discounter Kik and the DIY chain Obi. So far, the family company has belonged to a good third each to Karl-Erivan Haub and the current boss Christian Haub.
The third brother Georg Haub owns the remaining shares. After a long smoldering family dispute, the heirs of Karl-Erivan Haub agreed in April to sell their shares in Tengelmann Warenhandels-KG to Christian Haub.
Mysterious Russian
Karl-Erivan Haub has now been declared dead. However, his disappearance remains a mystery – the body has not been found to this day. Russia plays a big role in rolling up the case of the Tengelmann boss. According to an evaluation of his cell phone data, Haub had led a double life in Russia and visited a lover there.
Even more spicy: On the evening of April 6, 2018, on the eve of his disappearance, Haub called the Russian Nina S. * (41) twice on the phone. According to RTL sources from secret service circles, the woman is said to be an active agent of the Russian domestic secret service FSB. It is unclear, however, whether Nina S. was Haub’s lover too. Nina S. is officially Marketing Director of an agency in St. Petersburg. Did she help disappear?
The Haub family doesn’t think much of this theory. When asked by RTL to the Haub family, Karl-Erivan’s younger brother Christian (57) replied in writing on May 27, 2021: “After years of intensive work, including abroad, we have to state that there is still no conclusive evidence, and ultimately none there is a valid motive that would support the correctness of the alternative theories. ” (SDA / jmh)