Millionaire who vowed to help fund €2million bid to rescue Timmy the whale - which died anyway - 'refuses to pay more than €300,000'

By IMOGEN GARFINKEL - SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER Published: 11:20, 13 July 2026 | Updated: 11:24, 13 July 2026 The millionaire who vowed to help fund the doomed €2million bid to rescue Timmy the whale is refusing to pay more than €300,000, according to a horse breeder who footed the rest of the bill. The female humpback whale emerged at the centre of a media storm in March when it became repeatedly stranded off the Baltic coast in Germany. Spurred on by the frenzied public, a consortium of volunteers, millionaires and the local equivalent of the RNLI formulated an ambitious plan to rescue it. The €2million mission went against the advice of experts, who warned that attempts to try to save the creature amounted to 'pure animal cruelty' and the whale wouldn't survive the operation. Two weeks after Timmy was transferred onto a giant, half-submerged barge and guided back into the North Sea, her carcass was discovered washed up on the Danish island of Anholt. Now, the two wealthy donors who together funded the failed mission are in a bitter feud over how to split up the hefty bill. Horse racing entrepreneur Karin Walter-Mommert, 62, is attempting to recoup €500,000 from her former collaborator Walter Gunz, 79, the co-founder of the MediaMarkt chain of electronics shops. The horse breeder alleged the duo had agreed she would cover 60 per cent of the costs and Gunz would pay for the rest - but she claims he has transferred only €300,000, less than half of his share.  Two weeks after Timmy was transferred onto a giant, half-submerged barge and guided back into the North Sea, her carcass was discovered washed up on the Danish island of Anholt  Karin Walter-Mommert, one of the multimillionaires who funded the rescue effort, is a horse racing entrepreneur MediaMarkt co-founder Walter Gunz was the other sponsor of the rescue mission Representatives of Gunz have denied that a deal was struck between the pair and insist Walter-Mommert will not be receiving any more money from him. His lawyer, Joachim Steinhöfel, accused Walter-Mommert of recklessly spending the cash without alerting Gunz about her plans. 'Ms Walter-Mommert acted as though she had a blank cheque from Mr Gunz,' Steinhöfel told Bild.  'There was never any such thing. There wasn’t even an agreement. She arbitrarily issued contracts that Mr Gunz knew nothing about, and which he had neither commissioned nor approved. Despite this, he voluntarily contributed €300,000. There will be no further payments.' Walter-Mommert claimed Gunz had given her permission to control the project as she saw fit and his refusal to transfer her the rest of the money had 'profoundly shaken me on a human level'. 'During the rescue, Walter always said to me, "Do it, do it, do it",' she said.  'I asked if he wanted to see the bills or have them sent to him, but he didn’t. Now he has simply broken off contact. He is hiding behind his lawyer and leaving me to deal with the bill.' Following the discovery of Timmy's body, its blubber was rendered down into feedstock for biodiesel and fertiliser. Prior to the rescue mission, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) said any attempts to save Timmy were 'inadvisable', with experts saying the creature 'appeared to be severely compromised' and was 'unlikely to survive' attempts to move it into deeper water. When it was still alive, the whale was described as lethargic and suffering with blister-like blemishes, while parts of a fishing net were caught in its mouth.  Continuing to try to save the creature amounted to 'pure animal cruelty', the director of the Oceanographic Museum in Stralsund, Burkard Baschek, tried to warn. 'A rescue attempt … is no longer worthwhile … this has been confirmed to us repeatedly by international colleagues,' he said prior to the ill-fated mission. Nevertheless, the 33ft mammal was released back into deep water on May 2, after being hauled onto a water-filled barge by rescuers. Days after Timmy entered the North Sea off Denmark, the German Oceanographic Museum said she did not survive the transition to deep water. Timmy was found dead on May 14, after tracking data was lost, stranded off the small island of Anholt in the strait between Denmark and Sweden. The campaign to save the whale was borne along by a wave of public support as daily updates on the mammal's health dominated Germany’s national media.  The local state government of Mecklenburg West-Pomerania took up the cause and some members of the public lobbied Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz to step in. Timmy the humpback whale, now dead, was being transported towards the North Sea in a flooded cargo ship after being recovered from a shallow bay off Wismar Gunz, born in 1946, made his millions with the MediaMarkt chain, which he founded with three other entrepreneurs in Munich in 1979.  MediaMarkt is a German multinational chain of stores selling consumer electronics with over 1,000 retail locations in ten countries in Europe.  Before entering business, he studied philosophy and worked as a department director at Karstadt. He is responsible for creating MediaMarkt's advertising slogan 'Ich bin doch nicht blöd', meaning 'I'm not stupid'. In 2013, he titled his book 'Ich war doch nicht blöd', meaning 'After all, I wasn't stupid'. In 2000, he left the company and sold his shares, becoming one of the 500 richest Germans in 2010 with a fortune of over 500 million euros. Later in life, Gunz worked as a consultant and became the general manager of Axel Springer E-Commerce GmbH from 2005 to 2008.  He is based in Bavaria, on Lake Tegernsee, and in Morocco.  According to an earlier description in the 'Rheinische Post' newspaper, Gunz frequently bought caged animals in Morocco and then released them.  In a previous interview, Gunz explained that the entire rescue operation to save Timmy 'will not cost one hundred million'. 'People always think too much about money. You can't get nervous about it. Money is energy and you have to handle it carefully,' he said. When the barge began its journey to ferry the whale out of German waters, Gunz said he had never prayed so much in his life. When it eventually collected the whale, Walter-Mommert - the other millionaire sponsor of the mission - was ecstatic, saying: 'I can't even say how happy I am.' She is a successful racehorse owner, married to Austrian businessman Ulrich Mommert.  She won the European Amateur Jockey Championship in 1999 and was the German amateur champion in 1998 and 1999.  Before entering equestrian sports, she worked as an air stewardess for the then-American airline Pan American World Airways. She earned the equivalent of approximately £1.2million in racing in Sweden in 2025, securing more than 150 wins and numerous second and third place finishes. That year, she ranked second in Swedish ownership statistics (by wins). She earned millions from the success of her 300 racehorses, who work with the top trainers. In Sweden alone, her fortune from the racehorse business is estimated at around 7.1 million Swedish kronor (£565,000). Her husband, also passionate about horse racing, made a fortune from the sale of the Austrian lighting company ZKW Group to the South Korean company LG in 2018. In 1982, Mommert had taken control of the company when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.  According to Forbes, the Mommert family has a fortune of US$1.7 billion (£1.3billion).