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Europeans on the Edge

Episode 5: The German Millionaire

Duration: 15 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Lucy Ash concludes her series on five Europeans whose lives reflect the crisis in the economy with a look at the man they call German's Sun King. Herr Frank Asbeck made his money from solar energy and his company SolarWorld is now the third largest photovoltaic energy company in the world, employing 3000 people. He is a maverick millionaire who studied agricultural engineering and wrote a thesis on trout farming before zooming off to Nigeria on a motorbike. He has also completed a long political journey. He was a committed communist, then a member of the Social Democratic Party and he has now switched to the Greens. And he tells Lucy, despite worries about the Euro, the currency has been "smashing" for German manufacturers.
Producer: Mark Savage. Show less

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