Publishing Houses and Publishers

Edition 17/2006

The Rheinischer Merkur, the weekly newspaper that is celebrating its 60th birthday in 2006, has always been conservative. Today it is fairly normal in Germany for newspapers generally to be rediscovering the new middle-class way of life and a delight in children and the family. Suddenly the Merkur is fashionable.

But this has not (yet) had an impact on circulation figures. As with all denominational publications (Chrismon, Weltbild) these are in freefall. According to the IVW report, the Rheinischer Merkur has seen its circulation fall by around 15 000 copies since 2004, shrinking from nearly 107 000 to just under 92 000 at the end of 2005 (subscribers 56 500). Nevertheless, the Merkur is the only national weekly paper in Germany besides the Zeit newspaper that has managed to survive for 60 years. It has been supported by the Catholic Church for more than 30 years. In 1974 several diocese joined the board of publishers, and in 1976 they were joined by the German Bishops' Conference. There is talk of an annual subsidy of seven million euros – a figure that has never officially been denied.

A great name

The first issue of the Rheinischer Merkur appeared in a print run of 160 000 copies after World War II with a licence from the French occupying power on 15 March 1946 in Koblenz. The founder and first editor-in-chief was the journalist Franz Albert Kramer, a correspondent with the Vossische Zeitung. He had emigrated to Switzerland to escape the Nazis.

The choice of name was strategic. The German national journalist Joseph Görres had set up a newspaper with the same name in 1814 in Koblenz. The old Rheinischer Merkur was against Napoleon and in favour of the freedom of peoples, German language and culture, restoration of freedom of the press and reformation of imperial rule. Görres too was forced to emigrate to Switzerland when the Prussian government banned his embarrassing newspaper in 1816.

In 1949, three years after it was re-established, Kramer handed over editorial responsibility to Otto B. Roegele, a doctor and journalist. He was to shape the course of the weekly paper for the following 14 years as editor-in-chief (and remained one of the editors until 2005). The Merkur became Konrad Adenauer's favourite newspaper – Christian-occidental, anti-Prussian, European-Western and of course anti-communist. When Adenauer resigned in 1963, Roegele's time as editor-in-chief came to an end as well. The Merkur suddenly found itself rather alone in the German press landscape.

A guide in troubled times

In 1971 the experimental Publik publication folded. This had been a nationwide Catholic weekly paper supported by a strong lay movement and in the spirit of a revived church, but it could not find enough subscribers to survive. So the Catholic Church offered its financial support to the Merkur and since then the Catholic German bishops have their own newspaper.

This was not inconsistent with the merger with the Protestant newspaper Christ und Welt eight years later in 1979 – the Merkur was in favour of a merger and had advocated inter-denominational cooperation at a time when this was not by any means common. A slightly different type of takeover did not work quite so well. When the Hamburg-based Woche folded in 2002, the Merkur took over its list of subscribers and supplied them with its newspaper. The readers, who were used to a left-wing liberal orientation, reacted by cancelling their subscriptions. It became a fiasco.

After the merger with Christ und Welt the editorial office moved from Cologne (where it had been since 1950) to Bonn. Then the publishing house also moved from Koblenz to the seat of government on the Rhine. In autumn 2005 the Rheinischer Merkur moved into a new building in the former government district in Bonn. The newspaper currently employs 25 editors and staff writers. Around 35 more employees work in the publishing house and in the editorial office. As well as Catholics Wolfgang Bergsdorf, Paul Kirchhof, Hans Maier and Christa Meves, there are also two Protestant publishers: canonist Axel von Campenhausen and the former Saxon justice minister, Steffen Heitmann.

For twelve years now Michael Rutz has led the newspaper as editor-in-chief. "We stuck to our principles in the past", says Rutz, "and now we find ourselves surrounded by general agreement because the course of history has proved us right" (in "Wofür wir stehen" - "what we stand for" - in the anniversary edition of 16 March 2006). He sees his paper as a "guide in troubled times": "In future too, our readers will continue to find us a newspaper based on free, Christian-accountable thinking, which is not afraid of minefields and does pander to the zeitgeist."

But what is conservative?

The anniversary edition attempts to answer this question with a special supplement. "Everything that slows things down, that wards off decline by fencing in globalisation is good and right", writes journalist Alexander Gauland. According to Karl Kardinal Lehmann it is "remembering one's roots". "Making many changes so that everything is retained", responds Randolf Rodenstock (president of the Association of the Bavarian Economy). Richard Schröder, theologian and SPD politician quotes Goethe: "Much of the beautiful in the world is destroyed in fight and struggle. He who protects and maintains has acquired the most reward." Konrad Beikircher, cabaret artist, distances himself from the others: it's not about restoring the old state of affairs, nor is it about being reactionary, warding off the new with violence. It is somewhere in the middle between the (by no means such) good old times and blind trust in the new – this is what it means to be conservative. "Seen in this way, it is not the worst attitude one can have to one's society."