Although the couple could enjoy a life of luxury, cruise the Mediterranean in a yacht or drive a different sports car every day, Carlo Giersch prefers to drive a Smart and his wife Karin is a fervent gardener who enjoys nothing better than getting down to work in the garden. The multimillionaires from Frankfurt am Main did not inherit their fortune, but earned it themselves with good ideas and a lot of hard work in the electronics wholesale trade – their business initially had 11 employees, but 1,500 when they sold it in 2002. They now let their money work for them – not on the stock exchange, but for the good of the community. Carlo and Karin Giersch, 72 and 69 years old, make their contribution through two foundations active primarily in science and research, art, culture and medicine in the Rhine-Main Region. However, they also fund a chair of modern art at the university in Frankfurt’s twin city in Israel, Tel Aviv. In May 2009 the couple were honoured with German Benefactors Prize of the Association of German Foundations.
Since the couple have no children they decided to donate their fortune to the two foundations. Established in 1990, the Carlo and Karin Giersch Foundation at the Darmstadt University of Technology is the largest privately funded institution for the benefit of the renowned university in Hesse. It provides the funding, for example, for the Summer University that enables interchange between American and German students and maintains a Technological Innovation Centre for the business start-ups of some 50 young entrepreneurs associated with the university. Established in 1994, the Giersch Foundation set up and maintains a small, but excellent art museum in a villa on Frankfurt’s Museum Bank and funds an ambitious exhibition centre for contemporary art and a children’s hospital – among other things. The couple’s motto is “All that remains in the end is what you give away.”
