Heinz Hermann Thiele

Heinz Hermann Thiele (2 April 1941 – 23 February 2021) was a German businessman and the chairman of Knorr-Bremse AG, a German automobile brakes manufacturer, and chairman of Vossloh, a German transport technology manufacturer. At the time of his death, he had a net worth of $20.2 billion, making him the fourth-richest person in Germany; he was also the largest shareholder in the German carrier Lufthansa AG. He was a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Bavarian Order of Merit.

Early life Thiele was born on 2 April 1941 in Mainz, in Germany. The family property in Berlin was destroyed during the war, and Thiele grew up with limited financial means. He spoke of how he had gone against the advice of a management consulting firm that had recommended that the company leave industrial brakes and pursue industrial pneumatics instead. He went on to transform the company to be a market leader in railway and heavy-truck brakes. In 2018, the company went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in what was considered the country's second-largest initial public offering of 2018.

Later in his career, Thiele had turned an activist investor with Lufthansa, and noted his dissatisfaction with the government's rescue plan for the airline. When Lufthansa agreed to a state bailout during the COVID-19 recession in 2020, Thiele raised his stake in the company from 10 to 15.5 percent.

Thiele had a mixed appeal, with the German trade unions calling him a "caveman capitalist" whose factory workers worked 42 hours a week while those in the rest of the sector worked 35. Some of his other holdings included a 59% stake in Knorr-Bremse, half of railroad-equipment manufacturer Vossloh AG, in addition to his stake in the Lufthansa. He was a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Bavarian Order of Merit. His daughter Julia, is a member of the supervisory board at Knorr-Bremse, while his son Henrik is a founder of an electric charging technology startup.

Thiele died on 23 February 2021 in Munich at age 79.