German lorry driver plans to throw €75,000 away

German lorry driver Marco Hilgert won a radio competition asking "what would you do for €100,000?" with an ingenious answer: …

German lorry driver Marco Hilgert won a radio competition asking "what would you do for €100,000?" with an ingenious answer: give it away.

And so, tomorrow at 10am in the western German city of Kaiserslautern, Marco will be presented with his prize money.

That done, he's promised to toss the money into the air.

Well not all of it, just €75,000.

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Presenters at radio station RPR1 were so impressed with his idea that they crowned him the winner of their competition, narrowly beating a woman who said that for €100,000 she was prepared to have all her teeth pulled.

The would-be toothless woman was left speechless by Marco's original idea: to gift the money to his hometown of Mainz by throwing the money out of a window of the town hall.

Mainz politicians, apparently unaccustomed to throwing away money, scuppered that idea by telling him they couldn't open their windows because of the air conditioning.

Then the mayor of Kaiserslautern stepped in, offering Marco the town's Stiftplatz - loosely translated as "Donation Square".

"Something like this only happens once in your life," said Marco (49) on the radio station, adding that he would spend the €25,000 he is keeping on some home improvements.

The radio station has already begun planning tomorrow's event with local authorities.

Marco has been instructed not to throw all the money at once and he will stand in a restricted area to give everyone an equal chance.

"Otherwise we'd have murder here," said RPR1 spokesman Thomas Reiche.

Their precautions are well-advised.

Last June a 40-year-old man threw £20,000 into the air in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth, shouting: "who wants free money?"

He then sped away in his BMW, leaving a scrum behind him as people scrambled for the notes. The chaotic scenes were captured on the town's closed-circuit cameras.

A passing barmaid later told a local newspaper she had grabbed £400. Another man ended up £700 richer.

Arrested 15 miles away on suspicion of drink-driving, the man, now £20,000 poorer, said to police: "I just wanted to spread a little sunshine."

Derek Scally

Derek Scally

Derek Scally is an Irish Times journalist based in Berlin