and wealth. In the 1920s, Stinnes was embroiled in a legal dispute with Mayer Wilderman. Wilderman, who had been born in Bessarabia (then part of Russia), had set up a series of factories in Germany in 1912. However, at the outbreak of World War I, Stinnes seized the factories and deprived Wilderman of his assets, using the excuse that Wilderman was an "enemy alien". In 1918, Bessarabia became part of Romania, and Wilderman attempted to recover his assets. However, Stinnes delayed the process by disputing the facts surrounding Wilderman's birth, such as accusing Wilderman of forging his birth certificate, and used financial sleight of hand to pretend the assets had in fact been dissipated and, therefore, there was nothing that could be restored. Stinnes died in Berlin as a result of a gall bladder operation. Although his financial empire held some 4500 companies and 3000 manufacturing plants, it collapsed within a year of his death. Parts of his empire continued as Stinnes AG (now DB Mobility Logistics), Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt and RWE, the second-largest energy supplier in Germany. Family In 1895, Hugo Stinnes married Cläre Wagenknecht; the couple had seven children: Edmund Hugo (1896–1980), Hugo Hermann (1897–1982), Clärenore (1901–1990), Otto (1903–1983), Hilde (1904–1975), Ernst (1911–1986), and Else (1913–1997). Their daughter Clärenore was the first European woman to circumnavigate the world with an automobile in 1929. His son Edmund Stinnes was a financier who left Germany and gave his home for the Secret Surrender negotiations in 1945 which brought WW2 to an end in Italy. References External links 1870 births 1924 deaths German company founders German mining businesspeople German steel industry businesspeople German industrialists 20th-century German businesspeople Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic People from the Rhine Province German People's Party politicians