Axel Springer

Gemany's Axel Springer group (ASV) is a major EU magazine and newspaper publisher with book, film production and internet interests. It is now 40% owned by the Kirch group. In 2000 annual sales were over 5 billion marks; at that time it had around 14,000 staff.

The group is unrelated to the science publisher Springer Verlag, now owned by Bertelsmann and described in Heinz Sarkowski's Springer-Verlag: History of a Scientific Publishing House (Berlin: Springer 97).

    the group

Springer is currently the largest newspaper publisher in Germany, with over 180 newspapers and magazines, and has been expanding into eastern and southern Europe.

During the late 1960s it was responsible for 40% of all West German newspapers, 80% of regional newspapers, 90% of Sunday newspapers, 50% of weekly periodicals and two thirds of the papers bought in major German cities. In 1999 its share of the market in terms of circulation was 23.7%, trailed by Bertelsmann's Gruner+Jahr (3.4%), Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung group (5.9%) and the Stuttgarter Zeitung group at 5%.

Springer is also a major book publisher, has seven radio stations and a major stake in Kirch's television units (SAT.1., Kabel 1 and N24).

A chronology of the group's development is here.

    background

Axel Springer was born into a provincial newspaper publishing family. His break came with authorisation from the British military government of Hamburg to open a newspaper in 1946. He went on to launch and acquire a string of papers - most resolutely anti-intellectual, in line with his comment that too much reflection was bad for Germans - and magazines characterised by entertainment and conservative politics. Springer became Germany's leading Cold Warrior, swift to denounce those who questioned or otherwise threatened the economic miracle of the fifties and sixties.

Towards the end of his life he expanded into book publishing, notably through acquisition of what was left of the Ullstein group, and dabbled in television production and broadcasting. The latter attracted the interest of the Kirch group, which now has around 40% of the equity.

    studies

There have been numerous studies of Axel Springer and Springer journalism in Germany but only one major English-language work - the very dated Press Power: A Study of Axel Springer (London: Macdonald 69) by Hans Dieter Muller. Gudrun Kruip's 38 page Restricted Support: The Role of the Axel Springer Verlag in the process of Westernization (PDF) offers insights into the man and milieu.

His lasting monument, like Hearst and Citizen Kane, is likely to be attacks in the fiction of Heinrich Böll, notably the biting 1974 Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) about Springer's tabloid Bild and 1979 Fursorgliche Belagerung (The Safety Net).

The 1998 EU Audiovisual & Telecommunications Institute paper (PDF) describes Springer's unsuccessful move into cable and digital television.




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