Background

Rudolf Karl Augstein was born on November 5, 1923, in Hannover, Germany. He was a son of Friedrich Augstein, the owner of a small camera factory, and Gertrude Augstein, maiden name Staaden. They were Catholics, which meant they were wary of Hitler and his movement. In the late 1920s, Friedrich Augstein sold his business at a handsome profit, and this enabled the family to live in some comfort. During the Depression, he took up positions as a commercial agent and, in 1938, opened a shop named "Photo Augstein."

Education

Concerned, like many middle-class parents, to give Rudolf a good education, his parents put him in the strictly Catholic Empress Auguste Viktoria-Gymnasium. This required Rudolf to commute across town to the working-class district of Hannover - Linden, where the environment was anti-Nazi. In 1939, this school was merged with the local Realgymnasium, whose pupils were both Catholic and Protestant. Rudolf Augstein graduated in 1941 with his Abitur certificate. Augstein had always been politically critical, attracting attention while still at school by writing an essay casting doubt on the chances of a German victory in the Second World War.

Career

Rudolf Augstein served as an altar boy, but he was forced to join the Hitler Youth. His Hitler Youth group was not given a more typical paramilitary training but maintained a puppet theater instead.

With school behind him, Rudolf Augstein became interested in journalism and took up an internship at the Hannoverscher Anzeiger under Dr. Friedrich Rasche, the editor of the paper's cultural section. Since Rasche was no friend of the Nazis, the internship seems to have reinforced Augstein's reservations about Hitler. And yet the ambiguities continued. In 1941, he recorded in his diary that National Socialism was "an assassination of the split." But this remark, which could have landed him in prison, did not prevent him from publishing short pieces not only in Rasche's Hannoverscher Anzeiger but also in Goebbels's intellectual journal Das Reich.

As Germany mobilized for total war in 1942, Augstein was first drafted into the Reich Labor Service and posted to Chelmno (Kulm) on the Vistula north of Torun, apparently to build military installations. After the war, he claimed never to have heard about the extermination of Europe's Jews nor of the expulsion of Polish farmers from the region. His next posting was with the Luftgaukommando XI outside Hamburg, but since he was deemed unfit to become a Luftwaffe pilot he was assigned to an artillery unit in Hanover for training. Next, he found himself serving with an artillery regiment southeast of Orel near Voronezh on the Don River. Rudolf was seriously wounded in the arm by shrapnel, and after showing some leadership initiative in his unit, received both the Iron Cross and decoration for his injuries in silver. Recovering in Zakopane, in the south of Poland, he visited Lemberg/Lviv further east, again allegedly without learning anything about the notorious local ghetto. Never keen to embark on a career as an officer and increasingly pessimistic about a German victory, it was only in March 1945 that he was promoted to lieutenant of the reserve. His experiences in the Third Reich made him a member of the "Generation of 45." With the Wehrmacht disintegrating, he made his way westward without proper papers. At one point he was picked up by the military police, who were roaming the rear areas to catch "deserters" and executed them without trial, but he was let go.

He ended up in Hanover and refound his erstwhile mentor Dr. Rasche, who, having convinced the British that he had never been a Nazi, was asked to put together the editorial staff of the Hannoversches Nachrichtenblatt, the local paper of the British military government. He was happy to reemploy Augstein after the British cleared him, with Rasche vouching for his anti-Nazi past. Augstein met John Seymour Chaloner, a British occupation officer who was charged with screening applicants for jobs as a journalist. He took a liking to Augstein as he sat in front of him in his tattered Wehrmacht overcoat. Chaloner had two colleagues, Henry Ormond (originally Hans-Ludwig Oettinger), a Weimar judge whom the Nazis had dismissed and who, after a spell in the Dachau concentration camp, had escaped to Britain, and Harry Bohrer, a Czech journalist who had also found refuge in the United Kingdom in 1939. Having fought in the war and now assigned to the building of the zonal press, the three men were keen to establish a weekly that was modeled on Henry Luce's Time magazine and offered Augstein a job at their brainchild named, rather unassumingly, Diese Woche (this week).

Since only Bohrer had a journalistic experience, he, for all practical purposes, became its editor in chief and prepared the first issue with Augstein as the editor in charge of German and Allied politics. Hans Toll took over the cultural section. Roman Stempka, who had been a photographer with the Scherl newspaper trust and later with a Wehrmacht propaganda company, was responsible for visual material. The magazine hit the newsstands on November 16, 1946, and immediately published articles critical of British policies. By the fifth issue, this criticism had become so blatant that it caught the attention of the Foreign Office and other British watchdogs. After some bickering and confusion, the order reached Chaloner that Diese Woche was to cease publication. However, for some obscure reason, after further negotiations, he was given permission to transfer the ownership of the weekly from himself, Bohrer, and Ormond to the Germans on their staff, one of them being Augstein. The trouble was that they now needed a British license, for which the charge was 30,000 marks. Again the three British founders came to the rescue and provided the funds, although it remained unclear where they got the money. Knowing that the issues of Diese Woche had been sold out in no time, Augstein and his associates were optimistic that they had hit a goldmine. Still, the title was rather unattractive, so Augstein renamed the magazine, Der Spiegel. Called Der Spiegel (the mirror), the magazine soon became known for its outspoken, investigative style of journalism - something that was missing in the German news media at the time. With its hard-hitting thought-provoking topics, the magazine quickly grew into a must-read for both the broad population and the power elite.

It quickly became one of the most influential publications of the Federal Republic. By 1948 it sold 65,000 copies per week, increasing to 85,000 in 1949 and to more than 100,000 by 1950. The magazine came to national prominence in 1950 when it published a story alleging that MPs were being bribed to vote in favor of Bonn as the new capital of West Germany, to the detriment of a bid by Frankfurt.

But Augstein's defining hour - and that of the magazine he fondly called the "big gun of democracy" - came in 1962, when Der Spiegel carried a story about a secret North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military exercise, throwing serious doubt on the chances of repelling a Soviet attack. The story involved defense minister Franz Josef Strauss, and said that NATO planners were reckoning on up to 15 million civilian casualties in Britain and West Germany should there be a nuclear war.

The then-chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, was furious - as was Strauss, who was never at the best of times a fan of the magazine or its editor, whom he saw as betraying his country. The affair ended with the Spiegel offices in Hamburg being raided by more than 60 federal police officers, and the arrest of three Spiegel staff. Augstein himself was held in investigative custody while allegations of treason were checked by the authorities. Crowds gathered outside the prison demonstrating support for Augstein's right to publish without fear of imprisonment, and calling for his place in the cells to be taken by Herr Strauss. After more than 100 days Augstein was released without charge and Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, who ordered the arrest, was forced out of office in the ensuing scandal. Augstein returned to his newspaper, helping his country to navigate through the cold war years. However, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, Der Spiegel lost influence as a political voice as other newspapers and magazines began to compete for its readership. Augstein turned over editorship of Der Spiegel to Stefan Aust in 1995 but continued to serve as publisher until his death.

In addition to his work as an editor, Augstein was the author of several books, including Konrad Adenauer (1964), Spiegelungen (1964), Meinungen zu Deutschland (1967), and Jesus Menschensohn (1972), which was translated in 1977 as Jesus, Son of Man.

Achievements

• Rudolf Augstein's contribution to the defense and promotion of press freedom in Germany has been significant. Launched in the period immediately after the Second World War, the "Der Spiegel" magazine quickly established itself as one of the country's most important publications, uncovering numerous cases of government corruption and incompetence, many of them sending shockwaves through the country. Augstein was referred to as a "brilliant, independent and incorruptible analyst."
  
  For his important work in journalism, Rudolf Augstein was made an Honorary Citizen of Hamburg in 1993, received the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1997, and earned the Ludwig-Borne award in 2000.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Jesus, Son of Man 1972
  • Konrad Adenauer 1964

Religion

Disillusioned with the wartime stance of the Vatican, Rudolf Augstein had left the Catholic Church and become an atheist.

Politics

In 1972 Rudolf Augstein was briefly a Member of Parliament for the Free Democrat Party, but after only a few weeks he resigned to return to full-time journalism.

Views

On the domestic front, Augstein fought for a reconstruction of West Germany in the 1950s that would make a clear break with the Nazi past politically and intellectually. Thus he vigorously argued for the dismissal of refugee minister Theodor Oberlander from Adenauer's Cabinet and advocated for Hans Globke, the secretary of state in the chancellery, who had helped draft the 1935 anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws, to be sent into early retirement. But there were also contradictions in his writings. While extolling Stauffenberg's 1944 coup as a moral deed, he condemned General Friedrich Paulus and Hein-rich Count Einsiedel, who had surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad and subsequently worked for the defeat of Hitler on the Soviet side.

Quotations: "I never had problems being against something. I had more difficulty being for something."

Personality

When Rudolf Augstein was growing up as a teenager under the pressure-cooker ideological atmosphere of those years, his upbringing prevented him from becoming a confirmed National Socialist. But he imbibed the nationalism of the Third Reich inside and outside the Wehrmacht, which stayed with him throughout his life.

Rudolf Augstein had a keen interest in art. He was an enthusiastic patron of opera and theatre and loved literature and the fine arts. In his lifetime he supported many artistic and cultural projects.

He was not immune to criticism. His colleagues, although always admiring, called the publisher a "megalomaniac" and "control freak."

Quotes from others about the person

• After Rudolf Augstein's death, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said: "Germany has lost one of its great intellectuals. I have great respect for his historic achievements." He also called Augstein an important "guardian of democracy.

Interests

• opera, theatre, literature, fine arts

Connections

Rudolf Augstein was married five times. His first wife was a journalist Lore Ostermann, with whom he had a daughter Maria Sabine Augstein (she was born as a boy and went through gender reassignment surgery). His second wife was a journalist Katharina Luthardt. His third wife (from 1968 to 1970) was a translator Maria Carlsson, who gave birth to two of his children: Hannah Franziska Augstein and Thomas Jakob Augstein (following Rudolf Augstein's death in 2002, Maria Carlsson informed him that his biological father was novelist Martin Walser). His fourth wife (from 1972 to 1991) was a film producer and author Gisela Stelly. The couple had a son, Julian Robert Augstein. Augstein's fifth marriage, solemnized in Tonder on October 13, 2000, was to his long-standing companion, the Hamburg art dealer Anna Maria Hürtgen.

Father:

Friedrich Augstein

Mother:

Gertrude Augstein

colleague:

Conrad Ahlers

Conrad Ahlers became a correspondent for the news magazine Der Spiegel in 1957 and a deputy editor-in-chief in 1962.

ex-wife:

Maria Carlsson

Maria Carlsson was born in 1937. She has been working as a translator of literary works from German into English and vice versa. Rudolf Augstein married her in 1968.

Son:

Thomas Jakob Augstein

Jakob Augstein, born on July 28, 1967, is a journalist, author, and publisher. He is the publisher of the weekly newspaper "Der Freitag." He was awarded the Bert Donnepp Prize in 2011 for his commitment to publishing. From 2011 he has been writing the regular column "Im Zweifel links" for "Der Spiegel" and "S.P.O.N." Jakob Augstein also wrote several books.

He grew up as the son of Maria Carlsson and Rudolf Augstein, but following Rudolf Augstein's death in 2002, Maria Carlsson informed him that his biological father was novelist Martin Walser. Jakob Augstein publicized his mother's confession in 2009.

Daughter:

Hannah Franziska Augstein

Franziska Augstein was born on September 18, 1964. She is a journalist and editor at the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" newspaper.

Wife:

Anna Maria Hürtgen

Anna Maria Hürtgen was born in 1949-1950. Rudolf Augstein married her in 2000. At that time, she was the Hamburg gallery owner.

ex-wife:

Gisela Stelly

Gisela Stelly was born in 1942. Rudolf Augstein Married her in 1972. She wrote for "Die Zeit" newspaper and made films. She is the author of novels.

Son:

Julian Robert Augstein

Julian Robert Augstein was born in 1973.

ex-wife:

Lore Ostermann

Daughter:

Maria Sabine Augstein

Maria Sabine Augstein was born in 1949 as a boy. She underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1977. She successfully campaigned for the rights of transsexual people in Germany in various court cases. Since 1979 and to 2013 she won eight cases in the Federal Constitutional Court (Germany). She was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2015.

ex-wife:

Katharina Luthardt

teacher:

Friedrich Rasche

Friedrich Rasche published his own novels and poems and was the author of numerous publications on German literary history.

Rudolf Augstein had an internship at the "Hannoverscher Anzeiger" newspaper under Dr. Friedrich Rasche in 1941. After the end of the Second World War, the British military government commissioned him to head the editorial board of the "Hannoversche Nachrichtenblatt" newspaper of the allied military government. He made sure that Augstein also joined the paper as an editor.

colleague:

Hans Joachim Toll

The editors Rudolf Augstein, Hans Joachim Toll and Roman Stempka published a political magazine "Diese Woche." Hans Toll took over the cultural section.

colleague:

Roman Stempka

The editors Rudolf Augstein, Hans Joachim Toll and Roman Stempka published a political magazine "Diese Woche." Roman Stempka was responsible for visual material.

References

• Rudolf Augstein Foundation