Today, Germany’s wealth distribution is more unequal than ever. The richest 0.1% control almost 20% of the country’s private assets, while half the population owns next to nothing. As the state misses out on billions in potential tax revenue, the gap between rich and poor keeps growing.

A new documentary by the ZDF frontal "Steuerparadies Deutschland: Den Milliarden-Vermögen auf der Spur" dives into the hidden world of wealth in Germany. For nearly 100 years, a wealth tax helped redistribute billions from the richest to the state’s coffers. But in 1997, that tax was suspended. Frontal seeks to understand what the mechanisms behind this choice were and who benefitted from it. The documentary uncovered a decades-long campaign, backed by business lobbies like Die Familienunternehmer, aimed at abolishing the wealth tax, revealing the significant financial cost this imposed on the state.

Watch the full documentary here.