Rudolf August Oetker

Rudolf August Oetker (1916 to 2007) was a German industrialist, ship owner and art collector who built the Bielefeld baking-products firm Dr. Oetker into a multinational food conglomerate. He was born in Bielefeld, the grandson of the company's founder August Oetker, and his father, a chemist, died at Verdun before he was born. He took over as head of the family business in 1944, after his stepfather Richard Kaselowsky was killed in an air raid, and after postwar internment he led it until he retired as executive director in 1981, passing the position to his son August Oetker. Under his direction the group grew well beyond baking powder, and by 2006 Forbes estimated his net worth at about 8 billion US dollars. The record of his life is also contested: he served in the Waffen-SS from 1941 to 1944 and was a member of the Nazi Party, a past his heirs later investigated, including the provenance of the art in his collection, some of which has been restituted to the heirs of Jewish owners.