Another anti-Israel flotilla is preparing to set sail for the Gaza Strip—branded the “Peace Flotilla” by its organizers. The flotilla is one of dozens that have declared a desire to “break the siege on Gaza,” but this one has drawn unusual attention for a prominent passenger: Marlene Engelhorn, a multimillionaire, activist and philanthropist who declared that “I am against genocide and for a free Palestine.”
The flotilla’s organizers are spotlighting Engelhorn’s participation, featuring her image prominently in their campaign. Now 33, Engelhorn is of Austrian-German descent. She didn’t build her wealth through business or labor; her multi-billion dollar inheritance came by way of family fortune. She rose to prominence for advocating sharply increased taxes on the wealthy—once stating she would willingly accept a 90% tax on her inheritance.
Yet because Austria has no inheritance tax, she instead volunteered to redistribute 90% of her windfall to 50 “fortunate” individuals who could convince her they deserved a share. In 2021, she founded a lobbying group called “Tax Me Now,” part of a broader campaign calling for higher taxation on the ultra-rich.
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What adds a dark irony to Engelhorn’s presence on the flotilla—and to the organizers’ almost macabre enthusiasm for her support (“We are very glad Marlene Engelhorn is on the right side of history,” wrote the group Global Movement for Gaza)—is the origin of the wealth she inherited. She is the fourth generation of a German industrialist dynasty that, in 1997, sold its company, Boehringer Mannheim, to a Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate for $11 billion.
Engelhorn is also the great-granddaughter of Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of BASF—the chemical behemoth that, during the Nazi regime, was part of the infamous IG Farben conglomerate. After World War II, it emerged that the corporation had grown by forcibly “Aryanizing” Jewish-owned competitors, exploiting vast numbers of forced laborers, and constructing Auschwitz III–Monowitz, a sub-camp of the notorious Auschwitz concentration complex.
Due to its role in Nazi atrocities, IG Farben’s assets were seized by the Allied forces, the company was dismantled, and 12 of its executives were imprisoned for crimes that included the deaths of forced laborers.
Further revelations showed the company had produced lethal chemicals such as Zyklon B, which was supplied to SS forces and used in gas chambers to execute approximately one million prisoners—most of them Jews. Even before setting foot on the flotilla, Engelhorn released a statement: “I am against genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation and for a free Palestine.”