To Say What Is

In the entrance area of the Hamburg headquarters of DER SPIEGEL©

was the motto of Rudolf Augstein (1923-2002), publisher of the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL (The Mirror). The publishing house commemorated the 100th birthday of its founder on November 5 with a festive event at which our Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, gave a speech.

Young Rudolf fought on the eastern front during the last World War. In 1941, he wrote to his parents, "My dears, I will make the world sit up and take notice and be the first Augstein in the encyclopedia."*
*Here is the Augstein article on Wikipedia

Rudolf was wounded five times and turned home to Hannover in 1945 with one arm being shattered. He knew how to write and immediately wrote articles for the local press. In particular, he wrote for the weekly magazine This Week, published by the British military government, then took over the publication and was issued license number 123. He renamed the magazine DER SPIEGEL. Issue number one appeared on January 4, 1947. Augstein is 23 years old at the time.

DER SPIEGEL came across as old-fashioned. It printed long articles, sometimes spraying over five issues, and had only small black-and-white photos in low resolution.

One date changed it all. In its issue 41 of October 10, 1962, DER SPIEGEL reported in detail on the NATO simulation game "Fallex 62" under the title Bedingt abwehrbereit (Conditionally ready for defense), criticizing the Bundeswehr (Federal Army) and its Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Strauß.

Augstein had attacked the Adenauer administration repeatedly. Apparently, enough was enough. The government certified Augstein, as Chancellor Konrad Adenauer put it, "An abyss of treason" and had the editor of DER SPIEGEL and the article's author arrested accordingly. Augstein spent 103 days in pre-trial custody.

Rudolf Augstein on his way to jail. DER SPIEGEL© cover picture of issue 44, 1962.

A storm broke loose. People took to the streets for the freedom of the press and held up posters, "DER SPIEGEL dead, freedom dead." The end of the so-called "SPIEGEL affair" came when the liberal party left the Adenauer government and Strauß lost his office.

No government since then has made such a massive attempt to undermine the freedom of the press. Even Germans who had previously regarded DER SPIEGEL as too riotous and dubious now recognized its political significance. The magazine became known not only throughout Germany as Das Sturmgeschütz der Demokratie (The assault gun of democracy).

In addition to conservative politics, Augstein* criticized the Church. His book "Jesus, Son of Man" was published in 1972. The Catholic theologian Karl Rahner judged, "It is a frontal and total attack on the one whom all Christian churches profess as the founder of their faith, Jesus Christ."
*He was a baptized Catholic

Augstein also wrote a biography of Prussia's King Frederick the Great. Nobel Prize author Günter Grass judged, "On the one hand, he was the absolute liberal; on the other hand, he had an increasingly German national attitude, especially in his old age."

In 1989, like Grass, the then editor-in-chief of DER SPIEGEL, Erich Böhme, was critical of German reunification and wrote that he did not want to be reunited. In the following issue, Augstein disavowed his editor-in-chief, "Unlike him, I want to be reunified or reunited, although not at any price."

Augstein died in 2002. He is still listed as publisher in DER SPIEGEL’s masthead.

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