Rudolf Augstein would have been 100 years old

Rudolf Augstein would have been 100 years old

Sometimes it is very easy to determine the significance of a personality for society: by a street name, for example. In the middle of Hamburg, a promenade around the striking "Spiegel" media house has now been renamed after Rudolf Augstein.

The founder of the news magazine "Der Spiegel" was a controversial spirit and one of the most important media men of the 20th century. On Sunday (November 5), the publisher, who died in 2002 at the age of 79, would have been 100 years old. Augstein is still listed as publisher in the magazine's masthead.

After the Second World War

The first issue of the left-liberal magazine, which became one of the most important German media brands with a worldwide reputation, was published in 1947. You have to imagine the time in which Augstein established the magazine: Germany was morally broken after the Second World War, Nazi rule and the Holocaust. The country had to be rebuilt. The media played an important role at the time.

The current editor-in-chief of "Spiegel", Dirk Kurbjuweit, said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur when asked whether the magazine is still the "assault gun of democracy" today, as Augstein understood it: "Spiegel" owes a lot to its founder. He implanted our DNA in us: research, taking a close look, the phrase "Say what is". The 61-year-old added that Augstein was very much alive for him. "However, I would no longer use the term 'assault gun' today. It was exactly right for the time. Back then, there was still something to conquer for democracy in Germany. Democracy still had to establish itself."

Daughter: "He was completely unsentimental."

A lot can be said about Augstein, who was born in Hanover in 1923, grew up in a middle-class, Catholic family and was later married five times.

His daughter Franziska Augstein described him as a realist on Friday at a ceremony at the "Spiegel" publishing house. "He was completely unsentimental," said the 59-year-old. At the same time, the journalist and publicist qualified this: He always cried during the movie "Casablanca", she said.

Today, it's hard to imagine the police going through an editorial office like "Der Spiegel", confiscating typewriters and arresting the publisher. This is what happened in 1962, after "Der Spiegel" had written about the state of the Bundeswehr in its cover story "Bedingt abwehrbereit" (Conditionally ready for defense) - all during a nervous time of the Cold War. The suspicion: betrayal of state secrets. Augstein spent around 100 days in prison. The scandal is considered an important example of press freedom. A government crisis ensued. Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauß (CSU) lost his office. The long-standing feud between Augstein and Strauß was legendary.

In his speech at the "Spiegel" celebration, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Augstein had not only become the midwife of a free press, but also an actor in the power structure of the republic.

Employees turned into shareholders

Another special feature in the media landscape was that Augstein, who was sometimes known for very caustic comments, gave half of his publishing house to his own employees in order to make them shareholders. This gave the employees a powerful voice in the company and a say in important issues - to this day.

The image of the "Spiegel" founder changed again and again over the decades. The magazine itself has once again taken a critical look at Augstein's biography and personality. The current series states: "Rudolf Augstein's life and work are full of contradictions." His treatment of women, for example, has been discussed recently. The series also describes how things were decidedly nationalistic at home.

Augstein's sentence "Say what is" hangs in large letters at the entrance to the "Spiegel" building. But editor-in-chief Kurbjuweit also says: "Of course we also look back critically today, our current major "Spiegel" series also shows the shades of gray of this sparkling personality. But we are not distancing ourselves, Rudolf Augstein remains our founding journalistic father."

Source: www.dpa.com