Germany's richest man, who died last week, launched discount supermarket chain with his brother after the second world war

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Karl Albrecht, the co-founder of discount supermarket chain Aldi and Germany's richest man, has died at 94.

Karl and his brother Theo started Aldi – which has almost 10,000 stores across Europe and eaten into Tesco's dominance in the UK – in 1946.

Karl, who was the 35th wealthiest person in the world with an estimated fortune of $21bn (£12.3bn), died last Wednesday but the company delayed releasing news of his death until after the funeral.

Theo, who was worth an estimated $19bn (£11.1bn), died in 2010. The brothers split Aldi into two separate companies – Aldi Nord (North) and Aldi Süd (South) – after an argument over whether to sell cigarettes in the 1960s.

The brothers intensely guarded their privacy and were rarely if ever seen outside their fortress-like homes overlooking the Ruhr valley near Essen. Their reclusive nature increased after Theo was kidnapped and held for ransom for 17 days in 1971. Karl maintained the most intensely low profile, with his last reported public comments dating back to 1953.

The brothers' strict eye on cost control extended to their graves. They bought their plots in a municipal cemetery on the outskirts of Essen in 1997. The site was left abandoned for many years and became so overgrown with weeds that the cemetery management wrote a letter of complaint, according to German news magazine Der Spiegel.

It did not exactly spur them into action, but eventually Aldi trucks turned up with Mediterranean rhododendrons and cypress trees. The brothers had, apparently, been waiting for the shrubs to go on offer in their stores.

A spokesman for the city of Essen, in the Rhine-Ruhr region, where Albrecht lived, said a funeral was held on Monday for close family only.