Oetker, Rudolf August, born 20-09-1916, in Bielefeld, Germany, to Rudolf Oetker (1889-1916) on the painting 
and his wife Ida Marie Berta Elise, Meyer (1891-1944) 
.The merchant’s son completed a business apprenticeship in Hamburg, which was interrupted in 1936 when he was drafted into labor and military service. He joined the Waffen-SS. 
As the grandson of the company’s founder, Dr. August Oetker, he took over the family business, Dr. August Oetker Nahrungsmittel KG in Bielefeld, 
in 1944. On 30-09-1944, his mother Ida Oetker (born Meyer), his stepfather Richard Kaselowsky, 
left, with Göring, in the middle Rudolf Oetker 
and his half-sisters Ilse and Ingeborg were killed when a bomb struck the basement of their villa at Johannisberg 10. His biological father, Rudolf Oetker, had been killed in action during World War I near Verdun before his birth on 18-03-1916.
Before and during World War II, his stepfather Kaselowsky was friends with SS 
chief Heinrich Luidpold Himmler 
and a member of the so-called Freundeskreis des Reichsführers SS Heinrich Himmler, a club of wealthy industrialists who provided financial support to the SS leader. Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS, also known as Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS and Freundeskreis Himmler. Formerly known as the Keppler Circle, it was a group of German industrialists whose aim was to influence the economic policies of the Third Reich.
Rudolf August was a member of the SS, a fact that was revealed in October 2013. He had volunteered for the Waffen-SS. The Oetker family and the Oetker Group benefited from their support of Adolf Hitler’s 
regime. The revelations are detailed in the book Dr. Oetker und der Nationalsozialismus, an initiative of Oetker’s descendants.
After the war, he reported to the British authorities in Bielefeld on 18-05-1945, and was taken into custody. He was released in January 1946 after eight months. During his imprisonment, the British had taken control of the company. Rudolf-August ultimately did not face trial, but on 09-04-1947, his case came before Dr. Oetker’s denazification commission in Bielefeld. This commission consisted of company employees, and they acquitted him. A few months later, the British authorities upheld this decision, and on 20-09-1947, the company returned to Rudolf-August Oetker’s control, and he became its director.
Oetker took the family business to new heights. In the few years following the war, he transformed the food processing plant into a diversified company dealing in beer, pizza, and champagne, though shipping accounted for the largest share of its revenue—the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft (HSDG), 
or Hamburg Süd for short. 
In addition, Oetker acquired the champagne house Henkell & Co., Söhnlein and Deinard, the Gorbatschow Vodka distillery, and various breweries. He bought banks and luxury hotels in Paris and on the Côte d’Azur.
In 1976, in Freising, near Munich, his then 25-year-old son Richard Oetker 
was kidnapped by Dieter Zlof 
and released in exchange for a ransom of 21 million German marks.
In 1981, at the age of 65, Rudolf-August stepped down from the day-to-day management of the company and handed it over to his son, August Oetker Jr. At that time, the company had 23,000 employees in 35 countries. At the end of 2002, by transferring a substantial portion of his assets to the next generations, he secured the future of Dr. August Oetker KG, known as the Oetker Group, as an independent family-owned business.
Oetker has made a significant contribution to cultural life in the city of Bielefeld, including through his sponsorship of the Rudolf-August-Oetker Concert Hall 
and the Kunsthalle in the city.
Rudolf Oetker was married three times; since 1963, he had been married to Maja von Malaisé (1934–). He had eight children from his marriages. First wife Marlen, born Ahlmann ( divorced in 1941) with daughter Rosely Schweizer born 1940. Second wife Susanne Jantsch, divored in 1951 with four children, August born 1944, Bertgit born1946, Christian born1948 and Richard born 1951. Third wife Maja von Malaise with three children. Alfred born 1967, Carl Ferdinand, born 1972 and Julia born 1979.
Rudolf-August Oetker died on 16-01-2007, at the age of 90, from complications of pneumonia at a clinic in Hamburg. Oetker is buried at the Johannisfriedhof in Bielefeld. Am Botanischen Garten 1E, 33617 Bielefeld, Germany.
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