He was one of the defining figures in German football: Rudi Assauer won national and international titles as a player and as a manager and was popular with many fans because of his straightforward manner. Assauer died in 2019 at the age of 74, when he had been suffering from dementia for years.
The long-standing illness now has consequences for the estate of the former Schalke manager: the Recklinghausen district court has declared Assauer’s will invalid. Assauer “was not able to testify at the time of the certification of this will”. The court relies on Thomas Finkbeiner, the chief physician at the Dortmund Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Assauer was “no longer in a position” to “decide with a free, independent or uninfluenced will,” quotes “Zeit Online” from Finkbeiner’s report.
In his will signed in 2012, Rudi Assauer declared his stepdaughter Bettina Michel to be the sole heir. His former secretary Sabine Söldner, 62, and his now 78-year-old friend, the cosmetic surgeon Heinz Bull, were appointed as general agents – and managed Assauer’s accounts until his death.
When Assauer’s daughter Kathy requested information about her father’s assets after his death, there was hardly anything left of his assets, which according to tax documents amounted to 2.3 million euros.
In the meantime, the public prosecutor’s office in Essen is investigating for infidelity. Against Bettina Michel and against the two general agents at the time, Söldner and Bull. In August, an arrest warrant was issued against mercenaries.
Even three years after Assauer’s death, the family will not find peace. Bettina Michel’s lawyer Burkhard Benecken has already announced to the “Bild” newspaper that he will defend himself legally: “We will lodge a complaint and go to the Higher Regional Court in Hamm.”
Source used: “Zeit Online”, “Bild.de”
