Stuttgart, half height, end of September. The landlord opens on the first ring, and Dieter Zetsche steps out; Mustache, blue jacket, jeans, his uniform from the Daimler days. The manager has invited to his home, which is rare. It leads through the house onto the covered garden terrace. The heaters are not needed yet, only the pool has already surrendered to its wintry fate and is covered. It is nicely dignified here in the wooded hills above Stuttgart. Zetsche’s property is not overly large. He serves coffee and water himself. No more entourage far and wide.
Georg Meck
Responsible editor for economics and “Money & More” of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Marcus Theurer
Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
The former Daimler boss was on the road and only returned to Swabia the day before. The man is still in great demand. Only now it moves outside the headlights. Hardly a word from him has been heard in public since he was bid farewell to Daimler in May 2019 after four decades of service. The annual general meeting in Berlin was his last appearance for the automotive group, after which he plunged into the sink: It was not a goodbye forever, it was said at the time, he would return as chairman of the supervisory board in 2021. That was the plan. That’s what we’ll be talking about today and the person behind the manager. Almost every child in Germany knows the Dieter Zetsche mustache, but so far it has only given sparingly insights into private life, even inside oneself. The rough biographical data are known: Born on May 5, 1953 as the son of a German civil engineer in Turkey, grew up in the Frankfurt area, three children (two sons, one daughter); his first wife died of cancer ten years ago, and in 2016 he married his partner Anne, a French woman.