D ieter Schwarz is a German billionaire and the owner of the Schwarz Group, a retail giant that operates the Lidl and Kaufland chains. He is Germany's richest person and one of the wealthiest and most secretive retailers in the world. He inherited the business from his father, Josef Schwarz, who became a partner in a fruit wholesale business in the 1930s.

It was Dieter who transformed the family business into a global powerhouse. Inspired by the success of the Aldi discount model, he opened the first Lidl store in 1973. He built Lidl into a massive international discount supermarket chain with thousands of stores across Europe and the United States. The Schwarz Group also operates the Kaufland chain of hypermarkets. Despite his immense wealth and the global reach of his companies, Dieter Schwarz is famously reclusive, with very few photographs of him in public circulation. He has transferred his ownership to a charitable foundation to ensure the company's long-term future.