The First Decade

West Germany, a nation without a single operating newspaper at war's end, last week boasted 1,497 dailies and greater press freedom than at any other time in its history. As newspapers throughout the country noted their tenth anniversaries, they reported that circulation (total: 17.3 million) and advertising revenues were also at record peaks. But the editorial level of the press is not so high. Few dailies or magazines can match the best papers in the rest of Europe; German publishers still take greater pride in long-winded Page One editorials than accurate reporting. The news is stodgily written and frequently outdated, since even such big dailies as Hamburg's Die Welt and Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung pinch pfennigs by making correspondents mail in copy.

Interpreter of the U.S. The most notable exception to the dumpling dullness of the press is Der Spiegel (circ. 300,000), a TIMEstyle weekly newsmagazine, published by Rudolf Augstein, who at 33 is one of West German journalism's youngest and most ambitious luminaries. Last week, with characteristic disdain for the obvious, cocky Der Spiegel (The Mirror) made no mention of its tenth anniversary. Instead, Publisher Augstein celebrated by assigning Staffer Claus Jacobi to Washington, where he will open Der Spiegel's first overseas news bureau.

It was an important move for Hamburg-based Der Spiegel, since the magazine devotes more space to news of the U.S.--and treats it more intelligently--than any other publication in West Germany. Publisher Augstein believes that West Germany is economically and culturally closer to the U.S. than to any other nation. He says that when Spiegel tells readers about the U.S., it gives them a look into their future. In the past three years Der Spiegel has run 27 cover stories on U.S. subjects, ranging from politics to industry, from the tribulations of Autherine Lucy to the gyrations of Elvis Presley. Last week's Der Spiegel printed a five-column article on aerial photography, concluded that its own skeptical view of Eisenhower's "open-skies" proposal for arms inspection is no longer justified, since the program is now technically "capable of realization."

Der Spiegel leans even more heavily on U.S. magazine techniques, often wraps a news story around a personality. In a cover story last week on Franz-Josef Strauss, West Germany's Defense Minister, Der Spiegel scored a beat on the daily press with its disclosure that Strauss is planning to supplement the nation's conscript army with a highly specialized, 30,000-man reserve corps.

Untertan v. Obrigkeit. Publisher Augstein, a scrappy lightweight (5 ft. 4 in., 143 lbs.) whose family had opposed both Hitler and the Kaiser, started publishing at a time when West Germany's press was still timorous under Allied controls. His announced purpose was to protect the Untertan (underdog) from Obrigkeiten, or big shots, puncture the German's traditional awe of officialdom. Sponsored by British occupation officials, Augstein's magazine blasted Allied Obrigkeiten so vociferously that he was forced to get new backing, change the magazine's name from Diese Woche (This Week). Starting out with $5,000 in January 1947, Der Spiegel grew fast.

In the first years it relied heavily on exposes. It broke postwar West Germany's first parliamentary scandal with charges that two Bundestag Deputies were corrupt; they were not reelected. Later, before the 1953 elections, Der Spiegel charged bribe-taking in the right-wing Bayernpartei; all 17 party Deputies lost their seats in Bonn. Last year it broke the story of Prince Bernhard's rift with Queen Juliana, of The Netherlands over Faith Healer Greet Hofmans (TIME, June 25). The magazine's most sensational expose was a 1952 story charging that Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, whom it has bitterly opposed, had accepted favors from French secret service agents. Adenauer dropped defamation charges when the magazine announced publicly that it had not intended to libel him. But as a result of Der Spiegel's refusal to pay court costs, on grounds that to pay would constitute admission of error, the case is still rumbling on. Augstein--an influential member of the Free Democratic Party, which is more extreme than any other non-Communist party in urging unification with East Germany--admits that he may have carried the feud with Adenauer too far. Though he now agrees with some Adenauer policies, Augstein grumped last week that the rift "may not be possible to undo."

On other issues, also, Der Spiegel's cockiness has hardened into habitual choler. The magazine is more often against than for; it opposed NATO, European union, West German rearmament. Augstein's editorials have frequently been critical of "rigid" U.S. foreign policy, but Der Spiegel approved of the U.S. stand on Suez, argued that the more "fluid" U.S. foreign policy that resulted lessened the danger of war and improved the outlook for German reunification.

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