Brothers built global grocery titan from shop their mother opened in 1913
- Duo retired to North Sea island and their collection of typewriters
- Secretive family took four days to reveal death but wouldn't give a cause
One of the founding brothers of the Aldi discount supermarket chain has died at the age of 88.
Theo Albrecht goes to his grave as one of the richest men on the planet with a fortune in excess of £10billion.
He passed away on Saturday in his home town of Essen in western Germany's industrial Ruhr region.
But in keeping with his family‘s legendary love of secrecy, news of his passing only leaked out today.
No cause of death has been given.
Together with his brother Karl, two years his senior, he built up Europe‘s biggest no-frills grocery chain Aldi - which is derived from 'Albrecht Discount' - and in doing so was a regular on the Forbes rich list.
'The best quality at the lowest price' was the business motto and it made Theo alone a fortune in excess of £10billion. Annually, the group turns over around £22billion.
Aldi has invested £1.5billion in Britain and has more than 300 outlets, opening its first store here in 1989, but plans to have 1,500 in a decade or so.
The stores are hallmarked by their frugality - no fancy shelving, goods piled up on pallets, and no chic decorations or piped muzak.
Home to the brothers is a remote island in the North Sea, where they whiled away their time playing golf and indulging in their other hobbies, such as collecting typewriters and growing orchids.
Theo was once asked to inspect the plans for a new store in the Netherlands. Having studied them closely, he offered the following advice: 'This layout is very good. But there's just one thing - this paper you're using is too thick. Use thinner paper to save money.'
Rather than waste money on fancy fountain pens, Theo would also take notes at meetings with senior staff using pencil stubs under 2in long.
Theo was born on March 28, 1922 - and for him and Karl, the retail trade was in their blood.
Their mother set up a small grocery shop in Essen after their father, a miner (and later a baker's assistant), developed the lung condition emphysema.
Determined not to follow their classmates into the mines and factories, Karl trained at a delicatessen, while Theo learned the grocery business from their mother.
At the outbreak of World War II both were conscripted into the Wehrmacht.
Karl fought on the Russian front, where he was wounded, and Theo served with Rommel's Afrika Korps, in a supply unit.
He was captured eventually by the Americans in Tunisia, but both made it back to Germany in 1946.
The harshness of their childhood, the scrimping and saving that the customers of their mother's shop had to do to get by, made them appreciate the value of money and look for a radical new way of selling goods when they took over the shop after the war.
The rest is retailing legend - from 13 stores just after the war the Aldi ('Al for Albrecht, 'di' for discount) empire marched on to dominate the German retail landscape.
Perhaps inevitably for two such strong-willed characters, the brothers were not without their disagreements.
In the Sixties they fell out, deciding to divide their business in two after a row over whether to sell cigarettes at the till.
Karl is said to have been worried that the tobacco products would attract shoplifters and so damage profits. He took charge of the stores in southern Germany (Aldi-Sud) and Theo managed the less profitable northern stores (Aldi-Nord), with the help of his two sons.
Although Theo remained involved, like his brother, in the running of the company, a panel of other family members and representatives have helped manage Aldi in recent times.
In their semi-retirement the brothers, in the words of Forbes magazine, remained 'more reclusive than the Yeti' - which can be partly attributed to a terrifying ordeal suffered by Theo in 1971.
Kidnapped at gunpoint by a lawyer with gambling debts, he was held for 17 days in his abductor's Dusseldorf office, before eventually being released for a £1.5million ransom.
The kidnapper - who later received a prison sentence of eight-and-a-half years - was so surprised by the nondescript appearance of his charge that he demanded ID to ensure he had captured the right person.
True to form, Theo bargained over the ransom for his own release and later applied for tax relief on the ransom money as a business expense.
Where Theo‘s death will leave the empire is uncertain.
By ALLAN HALL 29th July 2010
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