Theo Albrecht, secretive co-owner of Trader Joe's, dies at 88

[onehandle]

Source: AP

BERLIN – Theo Albrecht, the secretive co-founder of Germany's worldwide discount supermarket chain Aldi, a co-owner of Trader Joe's in the United States and one of Europe's richest men, has died at age 88. The retail machine that Albrecht built with his brother Karl has won over German consumers with their no-thrills but super-cheap offer, making billionaires of the two and spawning imitation "hard-discount" stores across Europe.

The company's Aldi Nord division said in a statement Wednesday that Albrecht was the driving force behind Aldi's internationalization, expanding stores to France, Spain, Portugal, Poland and the United States, among other nations. The company said he died Saturday in his home city of Essen, but gave no cause of death.

Even that bare-bones statement marked unusual openness for a company known for its extreme secrecy. When Forbes featured the brothers in 1992 as two of the world's richest men, the magazine had to uses silhouettes rather than photographs to illustrate the article since no pictures of them had been published in many years.

The German Retail Federation said the country had lost one of its greatest entrepreneurs.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100728/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_obit_albrecht

[zonkers]

1. Safe passage Theo. Thanks for the yogurt balls, potstickers and 2 buck chuck.

[catzies]

2. I'd die of starvation without Trader Joes. Godspeed Herr Albrecht. n/t

[bigworld]

3. Aldi is a fantastic store

and this guy sure seems like a character. When he was kidnapped in the 70s, he personally bargained his own ransom down -- and then lobbied the German government to write it off as a business expense. He lived in an everyday house in Essen and fished in garbage cans for pencil nibs, which he used until they could no longer be written with.

[naaman fletcher]

4. Fighting age when ww2 started..

I wonder what he did at the time.

[Hekate]

5. I'm sure that if he was drafted it cancels out everything else he did in his life...

... such as being an ethical employer (health insurance, anyone?) and provider of acceptably-priced wholesome food.

I understand your concern, but seriously do you condemn an entire generation of Germans to Hell without knowing anything about them other than their country of origin and approximate date of birth? My husband does not, and he is the adult child of 2 Holocaust survivors.

Hekate

[naaman fletcher]

6. Who said I was concerned?

Just curious.

[Hekate]

7. You asked a provocative question. Perhaps you were not concerned, just cynical.

Perhaps it was an idle thought that drifted from your brain to your keyboard. Who can know your intent if you do not care to divulge it?

Not I.

Hekate

[Nevernose]

8. On a related note, I was unknowingly bigoted towards Germans until last week

Seriously. All I really knew of Germany, besides what I learned in European History textbooks, I learned from my family. My current stepfather is the world's biggest asshole (an oil company engineer with autographed pics of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh hanging in his home office, I shit you not). My deceased stepfather was a holocaust survivor. And, more importantly, my beloved grandfather woke up at least once a week until his death fifty years after the war, going for the .45 officer's sidearm he kept in his nightstand, screaming about "Panzers!" and forcing us to take cover. Plus, if there's a German in a movie, she's the bad guy.

My girlfriend's former German exchange student came to stay with us for two weeks and just left yesterday. Nicest person EVER. She's somewhere between Gandhi and Jesus. I was expecting someone like my stepfather (who allegedly is such an asshole because he was raised by Germans, and that's just how Germans are). Some kind of queen ice bitch who would probably hurt my pets for fun. I didn't even know I was holding a grudge against Germany.

We went to the international market and ate 20 kinds of sausage (and any group of people who eat that much sausage can't be all bad); we took her to Yellowstone and saw moose and bears and bald eagles; we traded books; and, coolest of all in my opinion, I taught her to cuss in Yiddish and got her hooked on matzah (and we're not even Jewish).

Anyway, long story short, next year we're going to Germany and staying at her grandparents' farm, and the former exchange student will serve as a tour guide for both Germany and France.