No summer like then – that’s how Mateschitz spent his last months

We are in Fuschl am See. Red Bull Headquarters The 14 bronze bulls storm the landscape like lava, and during lunch hundreds of employees swarm out and eat in the local inns. “A Blessing to Us!” It’s like a standard phrase we hear at all the Group’s locations in Austria.

Dietrich Mateschitz liked sober inns
Dietrich Mateschitz preferred noble, small, fine and yet simple and above all sober restaurants. Summer 2022. The hotel terrace on the Fuschl promenade seems to merge with the water. Fisherman Johannes fetched his wild catch from the cold depths. Only there Reinanke thrives. Unnoticed by the other guests, Dietrich Mateschitz and his partner Marion sit a little apart, right on the lake. The owner always ensures discretion.

On the left you see the fill in the twilight. Mateschitz only bought the mountain together with the woods and the small lake because he didn’t want another quarry to make a deep wound in the beautiful landscape.

From the terrace, the view goes on the other side to a spacious hotel complex. Since 2005, a Ukrainian family has been spending their holidays here at the personal invitation of Dietrich Mateschitz. The officer had heard about the blood disease of the then 13-year-old son of a pilot. He had the very rare, life-saving drug, which is only available in Austria, transported in a refrigerated truck to the hospital in Ukraine. He then took care of the education of the cured young man and had a workshop built for him, which he runs successfully. The father can no longer come to Fuschl, his jet crashed during the war.

Boundless charity really makes you rich. Not millions or billions.

DM helps quietly. The only condition: No one is allowed to tell anything about it. He pays the entire debt of a farming family whose father crashed his tractor. He finances school and college for the four children of a single mother who died on a zebra crossing. He sends a special prosthesis to a boy whose lower leg has to be amputated. The happy child can swim again.

Mateschitz loves water and makes major decisions in every situation in his life. Red Bull participates in the American Cup of Sailors. Port facilities on the Adriatic go to its foundation, like the structural jewels in the Ausseerland, DM has them renovated carefully and down to the last detail. The top lawyers and economists on his executive team review every line of the agreements. DM only wants very brief information. Then he signs.

A contract seems like a legacy, there has never been anything like it in Europe: DM 70 million donated to the Medical University of Salzburg. The last five of these will follow in 2023. “He turned down all the awards offered because they didn’t fit his style,” says the first rector, Herbert Resch. He once operated on Mateschitz when he was injured after a motorcycle accident in the African desert. Resch knows: “During meetings with the scientists and doctors, the highly educated Dietrich surprised himself with specific and to the point questions.”

Didn’t want to go back to the clinic
And yet, as the inevitable end approaches, he doesn’t want to go back to the clinic. Mateschitz accepts the fate and moves to Auhof am Wolfgangsee, which he bought years ago. A long lake shore, dense forest all around, a beautiful view of the waves and the mountains around the Bleckwand. The adjacent Landhaus zu Appesbach has been completely renovated in style. The food comes from there. Doctors take care of the patient.

Verstappen visit and final instructions
Max Verstappen has been invited for a final visit, for Mateschitz the Formula 1 world champion is part of the family, he always embraced him warmly after the victories on the circuits. Everything is done in strict secrecy, as riot media are already speculating about the disease.

DM’s last instructions come from Lake Wolfgang: The rescue of a dilapidated hotel on idyllic Preber in Lungau, and yes, no commemorations, no black flags. Everything must go on. The work he has been building since 1984 calls for cheerfulness and daring.

DM dies at the Wolfgangsee. There, where in summer the best cliff divers in the world threw themselves off the precipitous Falkenstein wall, where the Alpha Jets left vapor trails in the air, where helicopters did somersaults in front of thousands of spectators, where he landed in his little seaplane or by boat to his beloved little hostels right on the coast.

Hans Peter Hasenohrl

The last part of the Mateschitz series (about his son Mark) will appear in your Kronen Zeitung on Tuesday (All Saints).