INTRODUCTION: In the normal course of international investment the expansion of German firms abroad would be no different from the same activities by British or American or French corporations. However much depends on the political history of the relationships between the investing and the recipient nation and in what sectors the investment is taking place.
In the case of German industry today as it invests in Poland, The Czech Republic, Austria, Yugoslavia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe the political history is one of bloody conquest and exploitation by Germany and the industrial sectors which are being targeted are those highly political areas of newspapers and the electronic media. We already have examples – especially in Yugoslavia and The Czech Republic – of the pressure put on local editors by their German owners to report national and above all “European” affairs in a light favourable to German interests. For instance the editor of the Czech regional newspaper “Svoboda” received a letter from his German owner during the Yugoslav war (21st April 1999) which warned him not to report so favourably the activities of the Serbs “(your comments) exceeded tolerability…not to mention your evaluation of other hideous acts perpetrated by Milosevic – you do not devote due attention to them. I shall not repeat my challenges of 14th and 20th April…I expect from you a less one-sided approach…With friendly(!) greetings Matthias Roscher”. The full wording of the letter is in my possession and will appear in the next edition of Fascist Europe Rising.
The following translation of a report from our journalist friends in Germany shows how the above is undoubtedly being replicated elsewhere.
German press groups are expanding further into East and Southern Europe, especially into Poland. The German Springer Verlag (owner of the lurid tabloid Bildzeitung which recently stoked the German-Italian crisis with an advert for “blonde nationalistic……Germans” whom the paper would send on holiday to Italy!) already the second biggest newspaper publisher seeks to double its circulation. The German press expansion – not surprisingly – reminds the Polish media of the German colonisation and the occupation of Western Poland by Prussia.
The Axel Springer Organisation the largest German newspaper group seeks through expansion abroad to improve its prospects in the harsh competitive world of the German printing business. Up to now only 16% of its turnover comes from abroad (2002 – 2.78billion Euro) and wants to double this in the next few years. The competitors, German Publishers Bauer, Gruner und Jahr, the WAZ Group and Burda have been expanding into other countries in recent years and have achieved almost 50% of their turnover from abroad.
Springer seeks to achieve the goal of having 30% of its turnover from abroad by large acquisitions and the founding of new newspapers. About half of the 32 purchases and new businesses of the last two years have been abroad. Emphasis has been put in Western Europe on France, Spain, and Switzerland and in Eastern Europe on Poland, Czech republic, Rumania and Hungary – where Springer is the leader in the newspaper market. They also have their eye on the Asian markets: “We are at present considering market entry in Russia and China and will be active there probably in the next two years” the publisher declared.
A New Colonisation of Poland?
Spinger’s expansion in Poland started in 1994 and the company is now the second biggest newspaper publisher in the country and the owner of 16 publications including the successful economic magazine Profit. Since the successful introduction of “Newsweek Polska” in 2001, Springer Polska is now the market leader in news magazine.
The next step is a new polish daily newspaper. At the moment there is only one tabloid on the Polish market – Super Express – half of which belongs to the Swedish Bonnier group. With a new tabloid Springer wants to double his Polish turnover. But there is competition. Agora, the publisher of the largest Polish newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” is working on its own tabloid which is due to appear at the end of August.
The Polish press is mostly dominated by German publishers. By far the largest, with 28 titles and a total circulation of about 10 million, is Bauer. Passau (now dominant in the Czech market) took over the Polish titles of the French Group Hersant and is the largest publisher of regional newspapers. This dominant position is facing growing criticism. At the end of last year (2002) the economically liberal and Europe-friendly weekly magazine WPROST described, on its front page, with the heading Drang nach Osten, the German press take-over as a new colonisation. In some regions of Poland the Germans were so prominent in the newspaper market that it already resembled the Prussian occupation of Western Poland
