For today´s grandparents and great-grandparents of today's generation, gold was an important part of a sensible asset diversification strategy. The terrible experience of two world wars, accompanied by total currency devaluation in Austria and Germany, encouraged people to invest in assets with intrinsic value, especially gold.
Only those who had invested their savings in this way were able to preserve at least some of their wealth for their descendants.
Historically, currency systems were also based on a gold standard. The basic idea was to counterbalance money, which can in principle be multiplied at will, with something of lasting value that cannot. This is is precisely why gold will continue to be appealing to savers and investors in the future. It´s not just about the the return; it´s also about the certainty of owning something of lasting value in the long term.