“Germany’s Inheritance Law, Frozen in the 1950s”
Article by Marietta Auer
Germany likes to see itself as progressive on family policy. But when it comes to inheritance, that progress ends. In a recent legal column in Merkur, our director Marietta Auer argues that German inheritance law still reflects a 1950s model of the bourgeois nuclear family.
Her key points: the law treats wealth as “family property” rather than individual ownership, penalizes those who leave assets to friends or siblings with inheritance taxes of up to 50 percent, and contradicts political rhetoric that celebrates diverse family forms. In practice, true freedom of testation ends once you move beyond the traditional core family.