Springer Falls Back

For months, left-wing students have been staging riotous demonstrations against the newspapers of Germany's No. 1 press entrepreneur, Axel Springer. In his pugnacious newsmagazine Der Spiegel, Rudolf Augstein has called for a "lex Springer" to cut the publisher down to size. And a government commission recently warned that a publisher as big as Springer controlled too much of Germany's press for democratic comfort.

Sensitive to the outcry, Springer last week went part way toward satisfying his critics. In a surprise move, he sold five of his magazines. Das Neue Blatt, a gossip weekly with a circulation of 1,140,000, was bought for $7.5 million by Heinrich Bauer, Germany's second largest publisher. A small printing and publishing concern, Weitpert, paid about $19 million for the four other publications:

Bravo (circ. 778,000) and Twen (212,000), teen-age magazines; Eltern (1,200,000), a magazine for parents; and Jasmin, a four-month-old bi-weekly that has already reached a 1.5 million circulation by presenting a glossy view of the swinging life.

Despite his grand gesture, Springer did not appease all his critics. The publisher, complained Columnist Otto Kohler in Der Spiegel, has "satisfied, in a formal sense, the recommendations of the press commission without touching the basis of his political influence." In other words, Springer still controls close to 40% of Germany's newspaper circulation. He also keeps two radio and TV magazines and a sports publication.

Nor does he intend to dismantle any more of his empire. With most of his magazines gone, he plans to concentrate on his papers. And he has dropped a hint or two that he might just break into commercial television.

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