“Hitler was a dilettante. The Nazi Anschluss of 1938 has been overtaken
by the democratic Anschluss which Austria is now suffering. We are
experiencing an ever more complete sell-out of our businesses to
the Germans. The struggle for the Krone (newspaper) is only a tiny part
of this development. ………… we are living through a new Anschluss”.
Guenther Nenning, Kronen Zeitung, Vienna. ( 26 January 2004)
Article from “Junge Welt” of 29 July 2004
by Juergen Elsaesser (www.juergen-elsaesser.de)
Translated by Edward Spalton 31 July 2004 for freenations.net
One of the mightiest German media groups, WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) is taking legal action against the small German newspaper Junge Welt which could threaten the paper’s existence. But Junge Welt has a strong and wealthy ally.
“ALONE AGAINST WAZ AND THE MAFIA?” was the headline in the weekend edition
of Junge Welt of 27/28 September 2003. The article was an interview which has since become a pawn in the European media war. The sub-heading was “Concerning the press empire around the Westdeutchse Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) which has expanded in South Eastern Europe and is purposefully building up its control over the media there.”
A prominent Austrian has now taken up the struggle against the conglomerate. That Austrian is Michael Dichand, the oldest son of Hans Dichand and thus the heir to the Austrian newspaper “Kronenzeitung”, a tabloid with daily sales of nearly 850,000, read by 43% of Austrians – the biggest circulation in the country by far.
What Dichand said in the interview was a first – Junge Welt was the first German newspaper with which he had agreed to answer questions. The reaction of those criticised was harsh. Both WAZ and its chief executive Bodo Hombach issued proceedings – firstly against Dichand and secondly against Junge Welt. The main proceedings, which will commence on Friday (30 July) with an oral hearing in the Hamburg Provincial Court, are concerned solely with the claim by WAZ against Junge Welt for damages of 150,000 euros. If the case were to go against Junge Welt, the additional costs could ruin the newspaper.
“Lives at risk”
At issue are assertions in the printed interview, concerning WAZ’s business practices in buying up newspapers in South Eastern Europe. In response to questions, Dichand expressed concern about WAZ’s contacts with the murdered Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic and to even more controversial persons, above all in Croatia. Junge Welt did not endorse these views but merely reported them. Only I, as an interviewer with the necessary journalistic impartiality, elicited the answers by cross questioning. Yet our newspaper Junge Welt is to be prosecuted for “spreading” Dichand’s incriminating allegations.
If this legal viewpoint is upheld, press freedom will be massively reduced. In future every publication will be too frightened to interview critics of large companies. Even if a newspaper has not endorsed the criticism, as in our case, there can be a claim for upwards of six figures. There would only remain harmless chatter – the simulation of controversy and pluralism in a regimented society.
This case does not concern only professional life but also the life of professional journalists who take a stand against Mafia practices. Factual occurrences in the Balkans “throw a searchlight on the ways in which freedom of speech, independent journalism and democracy are endangered in the Balkans”, according to a written submission by our barrister, Alexander Count von Kalckreuth, to the Hamburg Provincial Court at the beginning of June. “To an extent which is unimaginable in the functioning democracy and stable rule of law in the German Federal Republic, independent journalism critical of those in power is being massively abandoned because of repressive measures in the Balkans.
Courageous journalists and informants are under continual danger of their lives. In Montenegro the chief editor of the conservative daily paper “Dan” was murdered on 28 May 2004. As the enclosed press report shows, Dusko Jovanovic was shot in front of the editorial building in Podgorica by murderers with machine pistols. The chief editor had repeatedly criticised the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and was reckoned to be close to the opposition. This distressing and sensational murder is only the tip of an iceberg of countless “small” murders, beatings by thugs and other measures in the Balkans against those who publicly expose the dangers to democracy and free pluralistic public opinion.
It is particularly appropriate for the defendant (the newspaper Junge Welt) to bring forward comprehensive detailed facts. But in the face of actual murder, it is no exaggeration to assert that the submitted facts and responses to the points at issue have, because of their highly explosive nature, put the lives of the informants and also Herr Michael Dichand at risk.
An (Eastward) Expanding Media Giant
On legal advice we cannot for the time being repeat those assertions which are the object of the claim by WAZ. The following statement by Dichand does not form part of them. It is however necessary to hold it in mind for an understanding of the occurrences. “German policy and German industry stand behind WAZ and behind that stand their interests in the Balkans and their very interesting raw material resources”.
To illustrate the significance of WAZ, especially in the German strategy for East and South Eastern Europe, a few passages from an essay by the media expert Horst Roeper (Formatt-Institut) are cited. These can be found on the website of ARD (http://www.ard-werbung.de)
“The WAZ group in Essen has at least survived the first two years of the advertising crisis with practically unaltered turnover when compared with the last boom year of 2000 (Turnover in 2000: 1,923 million euro; 2001: 1,992 million; 2002: 1,983 million). This could well be the same for 2003 for which no total turnover figure has been declared. Declining turnover in the domestic market appears to have been offset by rising turnover abroad.
According to information from senior executive Erich Schumann, turnover from abroad accounted for 43% of the total in 2002. If recent larger acquisitions in the home market are excluded, the proportion of present turnover abroad might well be significantly higher because the group has made further purchases especially in the Balkan countries where it has become the leading media group.
Alongside the newspapers, periodicals and printing works in Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Romania, WAZ acquired shareholdings in the last year in three daily papers in Macedonia and now clearly controls the small market there. In Serbian Voivodina the leading paper was taken over, thus consolidating the position in Serbia further. For the first time WAZ has entered the Greek market by taking a minority shareholding in the Lambrakis Press. The announced advance into the Turkish market has long been anticipated.
In Hungary where regional newspapers are neglected, WAZ has taken over the majority shareholding in a magazine. This perioodical HVG specialises in reportage on policy and the economy thus placing the firm in a market segment which it does not cover at home”.
Cartel Authorities versus WAZ
Roeper writes further: ” The WAZ group belongs to those large printing concerns which are campaigning intensively for a revision of the law on cartels and hope for significant deregulation. Probably no other publisher has had so many problems with the Federal Cartel Office and fought for its interests through the courts as much as WAZ. In most cases the Cartel Office has had the last word, as in connection with a reduction of shareholding in the Ost-Thueringer Zeitung in Gera. The newspaper does not yet belong completely to WAZ . The Federal Cartel Office has issued a reminder for the sale of part of the shareholding and threatened a fine – an instrument that it seldom uses.
At the centre of the group are the print media- according to the firms own information around thirty newspapers and over five hundred magazines, periodicals and advertising papers. These print media must have achieved a ten per cent better than average turnover and return in the most recent years of crisis. Contributory evidence is the new building of premises in North Rhine Westphalia by this firm which has long been known for its thriftiness. Because of increasing activities in Eastern Europe, the total number of employees in recent years has risen and is actually somewhere around 14,500 people. As always the group publishes no balance sheet, so it remains an open question whether all the enterprises are included in this summary estimate.
The Struggle for the Austrian Kronen-Zeitung
One would probably not go far wrong to assume that WAZ is not gunning for Junge Welt as its first target in this law suit but for Dichand and the Kronen-Zeitung. When we received the interim injunction against further publication of the interview in October last year, we would normally have had to capitulate – on account of our stretched finances, it would not have been possible for Junge Welt to sustain a case of this magnitude. However, our capitulation would have given WAZ a precedent which could have been prejudicial to Dichand in WAZ’s further action.
Industry insiders believe that a defeat for Dichand junior would considerably increase the chances of WAZ (which is close to the Socialist Party SPD) snatching the Kronen-Zeitung from Dichand senior. Michael Dichand has declared on oath that he himself has nothing whatsoever to do with the Krone, either de jure or de facto. Since 1987 WAZ have owned half of the shares in the tabloid, the other half belonging to Richard Dichand senior.
With this background affairs came to a situation which Bodo Hombach and his managers did not expect: Micael Dinand promised to support Junge Welt in the legal action. Only from this background could we dare to undertake the risky struggle. Perhaps WAZ’s plan was to give the small left wing paper’s ears a good boxing in passing and then, with the bonus of this judgment, to go for the profitable tabloid paper. If so, this calculation did not pay off.
The old marxist and resident Krone columnist, Guenther Nenning, put me right about the significance of the German-Austrian newspaper war. “Hitler was a dilettante. The Nazi Anschluss of 1938 has been overtaken by the democratic Anschluss which Austria is now suffering. We are experiencing an ever more complete sell-out of our businesses to the Germans. The struggle for the Krone is only a tiny part of this development. Cooperation is good but we are living through a new Anschluss” ( 26 January 2004)
In his book “The Second Anschluss” (Molden Verlag, Wien 2000) Klaus Brubelnik, Editor of the news magazine Format, counted up “in what branches (of the Austrian economy) the Germans have the say-so”. Austrian firms taken over included: chemicals, rubber, petroleum, electronics, optics, vehicle construction, suppliers to the automotive industry and machinery construction.
With the purchase of the largest bank in the country, Bank Austria, through the Bavarian Hypovereinsbank in 2000, Big Brother in the North acquired control over the Austrian finance sector. A few spotlights into the Germanisation of the media “Private Television in Austria means Anschluss to Germany (p 121).”measured by annual circulation, more than sixty percent of Austrian daily papers are fundamentally under German influence” (p 127). “Practically every magazine and periodical is under German control ” (p 127). Format’s chief editor Joachim Riedl states in a bewildered way that those responsible to WAZ “throughout their local media outlets in one tone as if pacifying a cotton plantation in the German South East”.
This liaison between Junge Welt and Michael Dichand may be surprising to some but, against this background it is nothing more and also nothing less than a defensive alliance against originators and profiteers of the globalist plague. The prominent left wing paper from Berlin and the outspokenly conservative tabloid from Vienna are disparate in many political questions – even opposites. But on two key questions there is agreement. Press freedom in general and the independence of the press in smaller countries in particular must be defended from the clutches of media monopoly.
