A quiet supermarket empire. A mysterious abduction. A ransom that shook Europe. The story behind one of the strangest billionaire disappearances you have never heard about.
Most people walk into Aldi for cheap groceries and a quick shop. What they rarely know is that one of the men behind the supermarket chain was once at the center of one of Germany’s most shocking kidnappings.
Theo Albrecht, co founder of Aldi and one of the richest men in Europe, was abducted in 1971. He was leaving his office at the Aldi North headquarters in Essen when two armed men grabbed him and forced him into a waiting vehicle. Theo disappeared instantly.
His kidnappers, Heinz Joachim Ollenburg and Paul Kron, demanded seven million Deutsche Marks for his release. At the time, this was one of the largest ransom demands Germany had ever seen.
Theo was held for seventeen days before the ransom was paid and he was freed. He survived, but the trauma shaped him for the rest of his life. Already private, he became even more withdrawn. His public appearances stopped entirely. He ran Aldi North from the shadows with almost complete secrecy, while his brother Karl did the same at Aldi South.
The story took an even stranger turn when Theo tried to claim the ransom payment as a tax deductible business expense. He argued that he had been kidnapped while working, so the cost should count as a business loss. German tax authorities disagreed, and the case became a legendary example in tax textbooks.
Both kidnappers were eventually caught. Ollenburg later wrote a book about the crime, adding to the bizarre legacy of the case. Yet despite all the investigation, many details of Theo’s seventeen days in captivity have never been publicly clarified.
What is certain is this. Aldi’s silent, minimalist, no frills empire was partly shaped by a founder who survived an ordeal most billionaires never could have imagined.