Springer Press Examined

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 15

Springer Press Examined

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, April 15. It is a bad sign for German democracy that the violent unrest in the Federal Republic is polarised between the Left-wing students on the one hand and the enormously powerful conservative Springer group of newspapers on the other—two extra - Parliamentary forces, David Hotham reports from Bonn in “The Times” today. Hotham writes: The Left-wing • students have, for a year now, been calling for the expropriation of the assets of Mr Springer, the most powerful press magnate on the continent of Europe. The attempt last week on the life of the student leader, Mr Rudi Dutschke, has led a section of the youth to physical violence against the Springer chain and there have been attempts to stop the distribution of Springer newspapers in many parts of Germany. It is significant that Dr Kiesinger, the Federal Chancellor, Mr Strauss, the Finance Minister, and other members of the Government—although the riots were started by the attempted killing of a student leader—have reacted sharply against the youth in the name of order and in defence of the Springer press. Mr Strauss said yesterday that the student attacks on Mr Springer were reminiscent of the Nazi attacks on the Jews in the 19305. As Mr Springer has become the symbol of reaction in West Germany for all who want to change the Establishment, even more so than the Government and Parliament

itself, it is time to attempt a fair estimate of the man and his personal power and political importance, both of which are considerable. Mr Springer owns only seven of the 160 West German papers with full editorial staffs (including Sundays), but his share of the total circulation verges on 40 per cent (about 8 million of the 21 million copies sold daily). Between 65 and 70 per cent of the circulation of newspapers published in West Berlin goes to the Springer chain. Mr Axel Caesar Springer, aged 55, is a brilliant man and an ambitious one. Much of the hatred of which he is the target came about because he succeeded where other German publishers relatively failed. He has an unerring intuition for power and business. He risked his fortune three times, against the advice of all collaborators, and came out of it, deservedly, with the greatest press empire in continental Europe. Its annual gross turnover is about £lOO million. He runs his papers like a monarch. He denies that there is any kind of central ideological control, and certainly such control is not formalised in any way. But Mr Springer is a man of the strongest political views. Deeply religious, a militant anti-Communist, be has also a sense of mission. He may not direct his papers openly but his ideas seep downwards. One north German editor told me that in his Protestant youth he was taught always to ask himself the question “What would Jesus do?” Mr Springer’s men ask themselves j“What would Axel do?” Mr Springer owns daily and Sunday newspapers as well as women’s and teen-agers’ magazines, but the two chief instruments of his power are the mass circulation “Bild

Zeitung” (with a circulation of 4,600,000) and "Die Welt" (circulation about 280,000), a quality newspaper. The “Bild Zeitung” founded by Mr Springer in 1952, is a paper for the masses of a kind not known before in Germany. It has brought to near perfection the technique of brief, trenchant, emotionladen editorial articles in words of one syllable, accompanied by sensational pictures and sledgehammer headlines —a complete novelty in a country where most people still tend to assume that information can be serious only if it is complicated and extremely dull. Sex plays a big part both in the "Bild Zeitung” and Mr Springer’s magazines. The power of “Bild Zeitung” is enormous. Mr Springer

calls it his kettenhund (dog on a chain). It has hounded ministers to resignation. It has forced the Bundestag to hold debates which it would not otherwise have considered. It was partly instrumental in achieving the fall of Dr Erhardt and replacing him by the “grand coalition” in 1966. No minister, politician or political party dares to oppose it openly. One sees the absurd spectacle of the leaders of the Social Democrat Party, most of whom abominate the Springer press, sending fulsome greetings to Mr Springer on his birthdays. The "Bild Zeitung” favours General de Gaulle, FrancoGerman friendship, and Mr Strauss. It is often rather unpleasant to Britain, opposes the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, is militantly antiCommunist, and deeply sceptical about detente in East Europe. Mr Springer has maintained that radio and still more television, both of which are State-run, are far more powerful than his newspapers, and there is some truth in this. So far he has failed to enter the television field. Mr Springer’s self-imposed mission was to reunify Germany and to “save Berlin” a goal for which he has declared himself ready to die. He sadly overestimated his political power, however. In 1958 he travelled to Moscow confidant that he could persuade the Russians to reunite Germany. The attempt failed and the extreme antiCommunist line of the Springer papers dated from that failure. One acknowledges that Mr Springer has stood for certain things which many regard as legitimate or desirable: Franco-German friendship, German reunification, reconciliation between Germans and Jews. What are less agreeable in the grip which the Springer press has on the German mind are its extreme conservatism and its anachronistic refusal to abandon cold war attitudes at a time when the trend in West Germany and Europe is moving slowly in the opposite direction.