Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Sociology - Politics, Majorities, Minorities, grade: 1,1, Berlin School of Economics, language: English, abstract: Currently a hotly debated topic dominates the domestic section of the media in Germany: the growing perception of social inequality. Part of this discussion is the debate about rising manager salaries, which have more than doubled in Germany since 1998. Against this background this paper analyses the composition of today's economic elite and the accessibility and openness of this echelon of society. The paper starts with giving an overview of different elite theories. Section two will answer the question, who are the members of German economic elite, referring to the widely noticed work of Michael Hartmann and the Potsdamer Elitenstudie conducted 1995 by Wilhelm Bürklin et alii. This section also compares the German economic elite with those of other European countries. The work ends with a critical résumé.