Manfred Bissinger

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Press spokesman Bissinger (left) with Hamburg's First Mayor Klose , 1979

Manfred Edwin Bissinger (born October 5, 1940 in Berlin ) is a German publicist .

Bissinger was u. a. initially a reporter for NDR in the television magazine Panorama and from 1967 developed the star from a previously colorful magazine to a left-liberal magazine. He then became press spokesman for the Hamburg Senate, editor-in-chief of specifically , Natur and Merian . From 1993 to 2000 he was editor-in-chief and publisher of the weekly newspaper Die Woche , then managing director at Hoffmann and Campe . At the age of 73 he founded a journalism agency.

Politically close to the SPD , he sees himself as a “classic left-wing liberal ” in a constant “conflict” between “ value-conservative ” preservation and the pursuit of “freedom, solidarity and justice”.

Life

Manfred Bissinger was born as the third son of the publisher and journalist Edgar Bissinger . His father was a press officer at the economic policy office of the NSDAP and later at the German Labor Front . He also wrote for the Völkischer Beobachter and became a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht. Bissinger said of his father: “He was a National Socialist and he was out of conviction.” The bombed-out family came to Bavaria in early 1943, where his mother's family lived. After the war, Edgar Bissinger wrote a book that a friend of the Ebner family published from the Ebner Ulm publishing group . The book on the interpretation of dreams was not sold for money, but only exchanged for food from farming families. Bissinger and Ebner then sold this food on the black market and so Edgar Bissinger was able to acquire a property with a house in Munich-Lochhausen .

When Bissinger's father founded a specialist publisher, the family moved to Cologne and Manfred first went to a high school in Cologne-Sülz . After a serious fight, he was expelled from school, but no other high school would accept him again. Therefore, he had to quit after secondary school and give up his career aspiration as an architect. He then attended business school and graduated as an accountant . At secondary school he met his wife Ursula, who came from a left-wing social democratic family. Through these contacts Manfred Bissinger became politically interested and got to know communist and Jewish victims of National Socialism. However, they did not get married until ten years later.

The father wanted to see Manfred as a journalist who would later work in his own publishing house, and despite major differences in the family, Manfred recognized his talent for writing and agreed to it. A traineeship in the public media was not possible without a high school diploma, so Manfred went to a family friend, the Holzmann Medien publishing house in Bad Wörishofen , Bavaria , where he learned the trade at the “Vieh- und Fleischwirtschaft” magazine. An unsolicited application to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1957 was initially successful, but the newspaper turned it down because it would no longer have its own volunteer program after the upcoming establishment of the German School of Journalism . Bissinger was placed with the Augsburger Allgemeine , where he was able to continue his traineeship in the business department. Even during the training, he was the only editor of the head sheet Danube newspaper , where he created a scandal when he was the only journalist in the ultra-conservative region over the arrest of two seminarians reported for sexual abuse of children. The publisher of the Augsburger Allgemeine announced him, but Bissinger had already made contact with the dpa and after this scoop they wanted to take him over.

He came to dpa in Hamburg in 1962. The Hamburg flood disaster was his first big topic and he already made a name for himself here as a committed and good reporter. In 1965 he applied personally to Henri Nannen for the first time and was commissioned to spend six months in Israel for Stern and to write two to three reports about it. However, he canceled this outstanding offer for a young journalist when he was offered at short notice the assistant director of Jürgen Neven-du Mont at NDR in the Panorama editorial office . At Neven-du-Mont he was able to learn new things and he preferred that to the first big job. Bissinger initially worked at Panorama on two projects on Eastern Europe and made a name for himself as a creative journalist. He went from assistant director to reporter and worked from 1965 to 1966 under the direction of Joachim Fest . After Fest was fired from NDR for reasons of party proporzes , Bissinger, Egon Monk , Winfried Scharlau , Stefan Aust and others protested . Bissinger resigned out of solidarity and applied to Henri Nannen and Gruner + Jahr .

In Hamburg, Bissinger developed his long-standing network of personal friends, which went far beyond professional contacts and included painters, gallery owners and actors, including Horst Janssen , Günter Grass , Dieter Kosslick and Peter Rühmkorf . Another friend became Helmut Schauer , first a trade unionist, then chairman of the Socialist German Student Union . He later expanded the network, it included people as diverse as Roger Willemsen , the advertiser Werner Knopf or the manager Christian Kullmann . Every weekend he carried out extensive correspondence with his friends, and he often enclosed a lost item with the letters that had been specially selected for the recipient.

star

There was no vacant position in Stern's political editorial team , which is why Bissinger was temporarily employed on “Letters to the Editor ”. Unknowingly, this gave him a position of power which he subsequently made use of. From the incoming letters to the editor and complaints, Bissinger quickly recognized the weaknesses of all editors and was better informed about them than the editor-in-chief. He spoke openly about it in the editorial conferences and thus signaled to his colleagues: "Be careful, be good with me!" From 1967 he was editor, reporter, managing editor and finally from 1975 to 1978 deputy editor-in-chief at Stern magazine . Nannen became Bissinger's mentor , sometimes his father's friend, and he gave him a course in journalism, journalistic quality and political engagement. For his part, Nannen described Bissinger as the most talented journalist who was ever at Stern . Under Nannen and with Bissinger, the star paved the way for the first social-liberal coalition . Money was not an issue at the time; in the era of the economic boom , more advertising orders came in than could be printed.

Bissinger's first big report “O Schlesierland , mein Heimatland” from 1967 took place in Poland and West Germany . Bissinger had met Polish residents in Silesia and talked to the former owners of their houses in Germany. For the first time, flight and expulsion were presented in the German press landscape in dialogues and nuances. The basic position of the article, however, was clear: the eastern territories were Polish and a return was impossible. Therefore the Oder-Neisse border should be recognized. In the Bundestag, the votes of the FDP were decisive. The Stern , Nannen and Bissinger shot themselves at the party and fought its conservative chairman Erich Mende , who rejected a reconciliation with Poland and the Soviet Union.

Bissinger revealed in the same year that Mende worked on the side for the US financial group Investors Overseas Services , which was later exposed as a pyramid scheme and went down in 1970. Mende was no longer wearable and was replaced by Walter Scheel in 1968 . So the FDP realigned itself and the social-liberal coalition and the Ostpolitik became possible. The meaning of the star and bissinger for this was ignored.

At the end of 1967 a report by Bissinger directly attacked Axel Caesar Springer as a person and his tabloid Bild . This ended the peacefully competing coexistence between the two major publishing houses Gruner + Jahr and Axel Springer Verlag . In addition, in the year of the death of Benno Ohnesorg and the student protests , the star became a paper that, according to Peter Rühmkorf, "developed into a leading opinion leader in the republic, with whom even elaborate contemporaries dared to show themselves on the street or in the café."

In 1970 Bissinger was leaked a draft contract, according to which Axel Springer would sell 33.3% of his publishing house to Bertelsmann on his 60th birthday in May 1972 - with the option of more than 50%. Bertelsmann had recently joined Gruner + Jahr as a co-partner and thus became a co-owner of am stern . The project was made public by Bissinger, Reinhard Mohn and Springer refrained from the merger. The general representatives of the two publishers Christian Kracht (Springer) and Manfred Köhnlechner (Bertelsmann) had to leave.

Bissinger's political orientation became a problem at Bertelsmann in 1975, despite the enormous profits the star made . In the previous year the newspaper had made a profit of 40 million marks and thus achieved a return on equity of 15%. John Jahr junior is said to have mistaken Bissinger for a communist and was responsible for the fact that Bissinger should not become deputy editor-in-chief contrary to the editorial statute. After a personal interview, Reinhard Mohn Bissinger offered one million DM as severance pay if he would quit on his own initiative. Bissinger refused. A representative from Deutsche Bank sat on Bertelsmann's supervisory board , and he could only explain this by saying that Bissinger was being paid even more generously by the GDR. Erich Kuby summarized the allegations: "The Bissinger is externally directed ..." Nannen stuck to the appeal and prevailed. Manfred Bissinger became deputy editor-in-chief and was guaranteed severance pay in the event of a non-renewal after 30 months. On the other hand, Peter Koch became a special correspondent at Stern , a newly created position close to the chief editor, so that a competitive relationship arose.

At the turn of the year 1977/78, an article by business editor Kurt Blauhorn (“... and tomorrow the whole world”) appeared in stern about Germany's empires and their foreign investments, which could also be seen as tax evasion . It was noted that Reinhard Mohn had also invested his money abroad and even in fascist dictatorships. Many entrepreneurs complained to Mohn, who blamed Bissinger. Bissinger stood by the publication whereupon Nannen dropped it this time. After his dismissal, other celebrities, including Günter Grass and the ÖTV union chairman Heinz Kluncker, supported him in an open letter on the initiative of Freimut Duve , Klaus Staeck and Jürgen Habermas . Bissinger's dismissal and the protests against it became the lead story of the Tagesschau . Felix Schmidt and Peter Koch were appointed as successors to Bissinger, and in 1980 Henri Nannen switched from editor-in-chief to publisher of Stern s. All three editors failed in 1983 in the affair over the Hitler diaries .

Press spokesman for the Hamburg Senate

Hamburg's First Mayor, Hans-Ulrich Klose , happened to meet Bissinger, who had just been spectacularly dismissed, and asked him if he wanted to participate in the SPD election campaign for re-election. Bissinger said yes, although friends were wondering why he, as a leftist, wanted to work for Klose, which was more right-wing in the SPD. Bissinger got involved and is considered an influential factor in the successful re-election with an excellent result for the SPD .

After the election, Bissinger was appointed press spokesman for the Hamburg Senate at the suggestion of Klose . During this time he was committed to founding the Hamburg Film Festival in 1979. In contrast to his first term in office, Klose developed the politics of the Hanseatic city to the left of the center. In terms of nuclear energy policy, he spoke out against the Brokdorf and Stade nuclear power plants . Furthermore, Klose criticized the radical decree and the role of the state, which unintentionally becomes the “repair shop of capitalism”. Bissinger's critics declared him the whisperer and Rasputin , who was responsible for this change. In particular, the Bild newspaper stood out because it had not forgotten its “very Springer-critical cover stories” in stern . Influential, conservative circles in the Hamburg SPD were also skeptical of Bissinger. The main reasons for the change in Klose's policy are that he wanted and was able to implement his personal convictions after the excellent re-election.

"Klose and Bissinger held out for three years, but then had to resign, rather worn out." Nuclear energy policy led Klose to resign in May 1981 after he had lost an argument within the SPD. In the course of his resignation, Klose also dismissed Bissinger so that his successor Klaus von Dohnanyi had a free hand in filling the press office. The retirement regulations for political officials , on which the Bissinger contract was based, was scandalized in influential media. Bissinger later voluntarily waived any payment under this contract. A heart attack by Bissinger forced a break.

Chief editors

In 1981, Bissinger, the chief editor of the magazine concretely and tripled in two years to run. The concrete new founder Hermann Gremliza formally withdrew to the position of editor. Bissinger introduced large reports as cover stories in the concrete. His publications of memoirs of the ministerial director and head of the Bavarian constitutional protection, Hans Langemann, became particularly well known . After a critical article about the then newly elected Chancellor Helmut Kohl , the editorial office and Bissinger's apartment were searched at the request of the Federal Government and the Federal Prosecutor was charged with betraying state secrets under Section 93 of the Criminal Code. Bissinger spoke of the "intimidation" of a press body that the government did not like. Federal Prosecutor General Kurt Rebmann closed the preliminary proceedings against Bissinger in September 1983 for lack of evidence.

After the scandal of the forged Hitler diaries at Stern was uncovered , Bissinger brought out the book of his former colleague Erich Kuby about the events in the concrete publishing house after the Hoffmann and Campe publisher Thomas Ganske refused to print it. Shortly afterwards, Bissinger and the two ex-Hoffmann and Campe employees, Hans Röhring and Wolfgang Schuler , wrote another book about the scandal, which was pre-printed in Spiegel and formed the basis of the feature film Schtonk! (1992). In January 1984, Bissinger left the concrete editorial team. According to his own statements, he admitted to himself that “the cooperation with Gremliza was a single misunderstanding from the start”, Gremliza could not and did not want to set up a journalistically complex, versatile and aggressive magazine. Despite a kolportierten tacit support konkrets by the patron Jan Philipp Reemtsma Gremliza could not afford the desired by Bissinger sheet. With the exception of one editor, all other employees went with Bissinger. Gremliza made his hand alone again.

In 1985 he moved to natur and the Ringier publishing house as editor-in-chief . Natur was founded in 1980 by Horst Stern in Munich and was managed by him until 1984. Publisher Michael Ringier knew Bissinger from a short time together at Stern and offered him the editor-in-chief. Bissinger wrote a concept how he wanted to develop the “somewhat senior teacher” sheet. The design should be closer to the audience and more solution-oriented, and environmental problems should also be dealt with with an optimistic attitude. In addition, Bissinger found nature too German, international aspects should appear more prominently in the content and he wanted the paper to be optically based on large models. Ringier agreed and Bissinger accepted the task.

Bissinger made nature “more political and stabilized the paper”. He also expanded its spectrum to include technology and economics. From his time at the Hamburg Senate, Bissinger was familiar with the nuclear power debate. In nature he continued it and in particular addressed the plans of the WAA Wackersdorf . A printed conversation between Bissinger and the philosopher Günther Anders , in which he declared violence against nuclear power and its defenders to be legitimate, was influential . Collected contributions from nature on the subject have been published as a book by Droemer Verlag .

After a good four years and exactly 50 issues with natur with a massively increased circulation to over 100,000, Bissinger left the paper and Ringier in 1989. He said in retrospect: “I liked the people, no question about it. But at some point I only had the opportunity to walk around with the burlap bag like the other pale-faced environmentalists or just to go away. ”During his time at natur, he had received several offers from other publishers. The Süddeutsche Zeitung had offered him the management of the upcoming SZ magazine . The negotiations failed at the first meeting because SZ boss Dieter Schröder Bissinger asked why he was actually a communist.

In 1989 he became editor-in-chief of Merian . This belonged to the Jahreszeiten publishing house and thus to the Ganske publishing group . With this, Bissinger returned from Munich to Hamburg. The travel magazine began after the war as a medium for dreams of the wide world and its places of longing. Over the decades and with mass tourism, it had developed into a magazine for cultural travelers. Each issue was made by just one editor who commissioned freelance authors and photographers. Bissinger "cleared out and modernized" the paper further. Simultaneously with the takeover of the Merian he became General Secretary of the PEN Center Germany behind President Gert Heidenreich . He used the access he gained to literary authors to commission them with texts for Merian.

In the course of the turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR , Bissinger reacted like a current journalist. In 1989 he brought out a Merian special on the GDR with a cover photo of a GDR border post with a bird flying up. It contains short literary texts from the time of Walter Kempowski , Erich Loest , Christa Wolf , Günter Kunert and Günter Gaus . The magazine sold 520,000 times and it came three weeks faster than the GDR special issue of the competition at GEO . In the following year, 1990, Bissinger brought out five Merian booklets in a slipcase on "The five new German countries" and thus covered a great deal of information about the former GDR among West Germans. This cassette sold 500,000 times and was also ordered as a special print by large companies who used it to give their customers Christmas presents.

The week

Newspaper head of March 4, 1993

In 1992 Bissinger received an offer that was described as "sensational" in the industry. Gruner + Jahr wanted to hire him as editor-in-chief of Geo . Everyone in the media knew that the reportage magazine should only be a stopover, after a “period of shame” Bissinger would “ take over the star ”. The star had gone into a tailspin, its importance had not been rebuilt after the Hitler diary scandal. Bissinger appeared to the publisher as a solution and a new beginning.

The project

Gruner + Jahr could not have known that Bissinger had been working on his own project with his publisher Thomas Ganske for a long time . Both expected a change in the German media landscape with reunification . The Ganske publishing group saw blocks dissolve: in politics and in the media. In this situation Ganske wanted to address a modern, younger audience with a new weekly newspaper and offer “liberal fresh air, from the left”. In particular, the monopoly of the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit should be broken up. And after decades as an employee, successor or in the role of a savior of other media, Bissinger finally wanted to build his own journalistic house.

The offer from Gruner + Jahr to Bissinger is one of the decisive factors in actually implementing the plans. In addition, with the financial success of the five Merian special issues, own start-up capital was available from the publisher. Bissinger became editor-in-chief, publisher and managing director of the left-liberal Die Woche .

In retrospect, the expectations can be seen as a misjudgment. The big media brands such as Spiegel, Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung in the liberal spectrum and left of the center were established and were more likely to win thanks to the need for information and orientation in the changing world. And new or newly cut media appeared at the same time. Just a week before the week, the Burda-Verlag launched the news magazine Focus for the political center and everyone to the right. And Gruner + Jahr had owned the Wochenpost since 1990 , formerly the best journalistic newspaper in the GDR, and tried to establish it nationwide in the market that the week wanted to occupy.

For the week, Jahreszeiten Verlag brought over 50 experienced journalists from all of Germany's major newspapers to a development department for the week. Bissinger brought Hans-Ulrich Jörges from Stern to act as deputy editor-in-chief ; Together with business journalist Kurt Brehme , who came from Bild am Sonntag , they were the original management trio.

The last start-up of a printed newspaper

The week was journalistically innovative in many ways. As the first German-language public medium, it contained a media page in every issue and reported on the industry. She used her layout for frequent pros and cons columns, each with an editorial on a debate topic. It was the first sheet to switch to the new spelling and from January 1, 1999, all monetary amounts were shown in euros . If the editors found it useful, an entire issue could be devoted to an overarching topic; it was then "penetrated from A to Z from different perspectives from a political, economic, cultural and social perspective". Willi Winkler characterized the week: "The 'week' was not so much about the news business, it was supposed to make an opinion, wanted to bring leading articles and theses - the 'time' again, only thinner, more colorful, younger."

With a new, reader-friendly layout and design of the first fully four-color newspaper on the German market, young readers in particular were to be won over. The multiple award-winning designer Neville Brody designed the layout and the newspaper head . He used a Pegasus representation from the 16th century for the emblem in the head between the words "Die" and "Woche". Underneath, the line "Founded 1993" confidently. As art directors were Lo Breier and Dirk Linke fetched.

The start was tremendously successful. After two months, 130,000 copies were sold and the week quickly became “required reading” for journalists and politicians of all parties “at eye level with Spiegel and Zeit”. Bissinger's leading articles gained influence. He described the end of the system to Helmut Kohl and accompanied the chancellorship of his friend Gerhard Schröder . He was critical of Oskar Lafontaine's ideas from the start and helped create a mood against him. The clear positioning of the editor-in-chief and publisher did not mean that the week was one-dimensional. The editorial team was composed pluralistically, counterparts to Bissinger were Tyll Schönemann (Stern) and Peter Morner (Manager Magazin). Roger Willemsen and Peter Glotz wrote weekly columns for many years. Bissinger had created a "pluralistic forum".

Bissinger's access to young politicians was considered "years ahead of the state of public debate". So he brought two largely unknown participants in the Pizza Connection in Blatt and let Peter Altmaier and Cem Özdemir argue about the chances of a black-green alliance. Altmaier described this publication years later as the real beginning of his political career.

The week received many prizes for its innovative page design and was the first fully colored weekly newspaper in Germany.

Hubert Burda had a 25% stake in the capital when it was founded . In 1996 the ownership of the sheet changed. The weekly mail has been discontinued. Since 1995 it has mainly belonged to the Munich lawyer Dietrich von Boetticher , who had bought 75% of Gruner + Jahr. Von Boetticher brought the subscriber data for the weekly mail with him when he bought 46% of the week. At the same time, Burda got out. In 2000 von Boetticher sold his shares to the Jahreszeitenverlag, which from then on wholly owned the paper again.

The end

In March 2001 Bissinger suffered a stroke in the editorial office . After treatment and rehab, the staff carousel turns every week from the end of 2001. Bissinger was replaced as editor-in-chief by Hans-Ulrich Jörges and retired to the post of editor. Kurt Breme became the managing director. Jörges left and was temporarily replaced by Sabine Rosenbladt , Head of Foreign Affairs . The managers negotiated the participation of other publishers, but this did not materialize. The week ended on March 6, 2002.

The project had less and less paid off, and many reasons are given as the reason for the termination in 2002. Bissinger himself was quoted as saying that "with the digitalization of the media world [...] it has become unlikely that a magazine or newspaper with a comprehensive range of topics outside of narrow market niches will ever again be founded." The week was "not over ." few readers failed; the advertisements were simply missing. The advertising departments of the Ganske Verlagsgruppe had previously only had experience with women's magazines or special-interest magazines. They did not know the target group of a political newspaper and could not reach them. In addition, the publisher's management could not identify with the product. The collapse of the dot-com bubble from mid-2000 resulted in a further decline in the advertising business. According to industry reports, the week is said to have lost around 10 million marks each year and drained the Jahreszeiten Verlag. The circulation was given as 130,000, but since 2000 half of them have been discounted copies for which the publisher saw little money. Hans Leyendecker wrote: “The majority of the readers are journalists who are interested in the work of journalists. That is not enough."

watch TV

From 1996 to 2001 Bissinger co- hosted the political talk show "3 - 2 - 1" on Hessischer Rundfunk . Three moderators invited two guests to discuss and argue on a controversial topic. The hosts were Luc Jochimsen (at that time editor-in-chief of Hessian television , later a member of the Bundestag for the left ) in the middle, Michel Friedman (at that time CDU board member and member of the Central Council of Jews ) and Bissinger on the left. After Friedman's departure in 1997, he was replaced by Hugo Müller-Vogg (then FAZ co-editor and now Berlin columnist for Bild ). Participants in the discussion were “managers as well as trade unionists, politicians and artists, up-and-coming talents such as the young Andrea Nahles or Angela Merkel ”. In 2016, the television program was reprinted once. As before with his newspaper Die Woche , the principle of fundamental debates with opposing points of view and a moderation was carried out.

Corporate publishing

After the end of the week of 2002, Bissinger became managing director of the Hoffmann und Campe publishing house in the Ganske publishing group until 2010 . There he built up the Corporate Publishing (HoCa CP) division founded in 1996 . This developed quickly and successfully. From 2010 he was always the economically strongest part of the Ganske publishing group. Customers included and still include Siemens, BMW, RWE, HochTief, Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Unilever, Wempe, Mini, Hamburger Sparkasse and Evonik Industries. But also the Bavarian State Opera, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety had publications created and distributed by HoCa CP. During this time, Bissinger was also a “leader” in the advisory group around Werner Müller when it came to founding Evonik Industries from Ruhrkohle AG . Evonik then became HoCa CP's second best customer.

On August 1, 2013, Bissinger left Hoffmann and Campe and left the Ganske publishing group for good. This was preceded by an argument. Hoffmann and Campe had lost the most important corporate publishing customer BMW to a London agency, Bissinger intervened personally and, in cooperation with ex-week employees Dirk Linke and Adriano Sack , managed to withdraw the order from the British and BMW Group stayed with Hoffmann and Campe. For this, Bissinger wanted financial participation. Thomas Ganske initially refused. When he changed his mind and approached Bissinger, it was too late for a reconciliation.

In October 2013, Bissinger founded the corporate publishing agency Bissinger plus together with his former Hoffmann-und-Campe colleagues Kim Notz (formerly Krawehl) and Andreas Siefke in Hamburg , their own spelling in capital letters : Bissinger [+]. The agency worked closely with the Hamburg advertising agency KNSK and the Essen-based brand consultancy KNSK brand lab from Werner Knopf , in which Bissinger had been involved financially for a long time. In January 2018 KNSK, the KNSK brand lab and Bissinger [+] merged to form the KNSKB + holding . Siefke then left the agency because he “saw no further task in it”. Kim Notz (* 1981) became the holding's spokeswoman. KNSK + has 175 employees at the beginning of 2019, Bissinger is the managing director and largest shareholder.

person

Political positions

Manfred Bissinger belonged to the advisory group of the Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder . He had twice the offer to join his cabinet as Minister of State for Culture, but did not want to give up Die Woche for it . He also turned down another offer to become government spokesman. Bissinger supported the Hartz concept , the German green card , debt reduction and the lowering of income tax rates. In terms of press law, Bissinger was responsible for an advertisement for the 2005 Bundestag election calling for Gerhard Schröder to be re-elected.

In August 2010, Bissinger supported the Energy Political Appeal as one of 40 signatories , a lobbying initiative of the four major electricity companies to promote the extension of the service life of German nuclear power plants . Bissinger then protested against the accusation that he had become a "nuclear lobbyist". He was "in favor of an extension of nuclear energy, insofar as it is necessary to ensure that renewable energies can be properly brought onto the market." Instead of making decisions in the background, he therefore supports the open commitment of the energy companies, as these will be in the medium term also wanted to abolish atomic energy and replace it with renewable energies .

His biographers therefore refer to Bissinger's unnamed, critical companions who claim that he has developed "from a social liberal to an unconditional supporter of a purely economic and finance-oriented consortium of politics and industry".

Memberships and honors

Bissinger became a member of the SPD "in the years after Brandt's resignation " in May 1974 and remained so until 1992. The Petersberg resolutions implemented by Björn Engholm , which, in addition to restricting the right of asylum, supported the Bundeswehr's foreign deployments for the first time (initially only as part of UN peace missions ), he refused and then resigned from the party together with his friends Jürgen Flimm and Günter Grass .

In 1983 he was honored in Athens for his commitment to democracy during the Greek military dictatorship . At the same time, Günter Wallraff , Helmut Palmer and the teacher Sabine Dege were honored with him . Bissinger first met Dege on this trip, and later she became his second wife.

He is a member of the PEN Center Germany and was its General Secretary from 1991 to 1993. Bissinger has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

Private life

One of Bissinger's strengths is that he likes to approach people, that he can win them over and maintain contact for decades. In this way, he has built up a large network of friends and professional acquaintances. The colleague and friend Stefan Aust said on Bissinger's 60th birthday: “Manfred is good with people. He's very good at building personal relationships. ”“ His connections are enormous. He knows everyone and lives from the myth: Somehow left, somehow independent ”, wrote Hans Leyendecker in the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

This network included the writer and graphic artist Günter Grass , which is why it was Bissinger who Grass called first after he had been informed in 1999 about the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature . Bissinger organized and moderated a press conference for Grass on the same day. Grass was also a political compass for Bissinger. When writing significant comments, he often checked his arguments by talking on the phone with Grass, whose different point of view and clear stance were very important to Bissinger.

Bissinger collects contemporary art and is friends with many of the artists. His collection includes works by Markus Lüpertz , Horst Janssen , Stephan Balkenhol , SEO , Nikolaus Lang , Klaus Fußmann , Andy Warhol , Rainer Kriester and Bruno Bruni , as well as Gerald Strasser , Cornelia Schleime , Strawalde , Barbara Tucholski , Klaus Zylla and Felix Martin Furtwangler .

Manfred Bissinger has two daughters who also work in the cultural sector and has been married to his wife Margrit for the third time since 2000. He lives in Neuland in the Stade district .

Working method

Bissinger likes to intervene in the current political discourse with his articles and books. He describes this politically motivated basic attitude with the marker-perpetrator formula by Henri Nannen . As a journalist, he is not a “marker” and therefore not only wants to describe, but rather to fight for a cause as a “perpetrator”. “Nothing can outweigh the fact that you can interfere.” Bissinger wants to “ serve the purpose of clarification and not the state or any interest groups”. In 2017, Bissinger warned against mixing journalism and advertising; this difference must always remain transparent. Only then could advertising by companies also credibly finance good journalism. After the downsizing of the editorial staff due to digitization and the economic crisis, new fields of work would arise in content marketing .

Bissinger was sued many times for publications, but won all cases. There was only one case in which the company behind the mineral water brand Apollinaris sued for a test in nature with an amount in dispute of 6 million DM, but here too Bissinger and the publishing house won. He himself sued Hubertus Knabe when he claimed without evidence that Bissinger's text in Stern against Axel Caesar Springer was based on material that the Stasi had given him. Here, too, Bissinger won in court, Knabe had to submit a declaration of cease and desist and a large number of conservative media, including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Welt am Sonntag and Hubert Burda , had to row back because they had already taken up Knabe's accusation and adopted it.

Until 2013, Bissinger wrote all texts by hand or dictated them. He didn't use a typewriter or a computer. It was only when he became self-employed that Werner Knopf showed him how to use an iPad .

The journalist Reinhard Hesse described Bissinger as a "thoughtful looking man with a quiet sense of humor, who sometimes makes one forget that he is probably one of the sleepiest people in his profession". A media colleague said of him that he was “equipped with a fine journalistic nose and fearless when it comes to the matter”. He always stood up for his concerns “with a reserved appearance and the best camouflaged toughness”. His approach to very different people has been described as "cautious [s], sometimes wait-and-see tactics".

He has a constructive and supportive way of dealing with his employees: "Manfred is a magician, he makes you feel that you are incredibly important to him. Of course that's not true, but by then he has already won you, ”said one of his former colleagues from the star . Sabine Rosenbladt , head of the foreign affairs department and short-term editor-in-chief of the week, wrote about Bissinger: "Like every great boss, he is a totally horrible, impossible, unbearable, uniquely great guy."

Publications (selection)

Fonts

Conversation volumes

Editorships

literature

Movie

radio

  • Music and questions about the person. The publicist Manfred Bissinger. Talk with music, Germany, 2019, 84:40 min., Moderation: Joachim Scholl, production: Deutschlandfunk , series: Zwischenentöne , broadcast date: August 18, 2019, table of contents , audio file , available until August 19, 2038.

Web links

Commons : Manfred Bissinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Manfred Bissinger in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  2. a b c d e f g h instead of a foreword. Manfred Bissinger in conversation with Roger Willemsen . In: Lauter Widerworte , ISBN 978-3-455-50206-0 , pp. 11-28.
  3. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 19 f.
  4. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 21
  5. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 28 f.
  6. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 32–36
  7. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 40–44
  8. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 58 f.
  9. Anja Reschke: Manfred Bissinger. In: The Inconvenient: How Panorama Changed the Republic . Redline Wirtschaft, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-86881-306-7 .
  10. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 47–52
  11. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 61
  12. ^ Hermann Schreiber: Henri Nannen . C. Bertelsmann 1999, p. 308, quoted from Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 66, 264
  13. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 66
  14. a b c d e Willi Winkler : Manfred Bissinger turns 70 - with the story of the disclosure of the FDP. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2010.
  15. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 72–76
  16. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 257
  17. ^ Die Woche , October 5, 2000, p. 3, quoted from Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 88
  18. a b Thomas Schuler : How Mohn wants to buy Springer - and fails on the star. In: ders., Die Mohns. From provincial bookseller to global corporation: the family behind Bertelsmann. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and New York 2004, ISBN 3-593-37307-6 , pp. 190-194, online text in Google books .
  19. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 95 ff.
  20. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 108
  21. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 111
  22. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 112
  23. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 115 f.
  24. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 119
  25. a b Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 143
  26. a b c d e f Miklós Pataky: Hamburg's media maker. Today: Manfred Bissinger, editor-in-chief “Die Woche”. In: Hamburger Morgenpost , December 14, 1998.
  27. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 147
  28. Der Spiegel: The former Hamburg mayor Hans-Ulrich Klose on the Klose / Bissinger affair , July 20, 1981
  29. a b c d e f g h Leif Kramp: Manfred Bissinger - The contact. In: Stephan Weichert , Christian Zabel (eds.), Die Alpha-Journalisten , 2007, ISBN 978-3-938258-29-3 , pp. 114–124.
  30. a b N.N .: Concretely abstract. In: Die Zeit , January 20, 1984.
  31. a b Gerhard Spörl : An affair with consequences. ( Memento from May 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: Die Zeit , January 14, 1983.
  32. ^ NN : press. The turn. In: Der Spiegel , January 17, 1983, No. 3.
  33. NN: Judicial. Manfred Bissinger. In: Der Spiegel , September 19, 1983, No. 38.
  34. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 123–125
  35. a b c Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 159
  36. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 171
  37. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 169–173
  38. ^ NN: Professional. Manfred Bissinger. In: Der Spiegel , November 12, 1984, No. 46.
  39. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 172
  40. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 173
  41. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 175
  42. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 175–179
  43. a b Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 178
  44. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 191–211
  45. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 191
  46. Ulrike Simon: "The week": shadow plants. In: Der Tagesspiegel , February 19, 2000.
  47. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 192 f.
  48. ^ Kress Report: Kurt Breme on Kress Heads. Retrieved October 16, 2019
  49. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 194 f.
  50. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 196 f.
  51. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 210
  52. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 195
  53. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 196
  54. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 200
  55. a b Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 199
  56. »The week« is discontinued. In: stern , March 6, 2002.
  57. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 194
  58. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 208
  59. ^ Dpa : Manfred Bissinger - a special media maker. ( Memento from May 13, 2017 in the archive.today web archive ). In: Hamburger Abendblatt , October 4, 2015.
  60. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 201–203
  61. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 201
  62. a b c Hans Leyendecker: Somehow left, somehow alive . Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 12, 2001, p. 21
  63. Manfred Bissinger. In: VDZ Akademie , accessed on June 23, 2017.
  64. Petra Sitte : 3 - 2 - 1 - A talk show legend celebrates resurrection. In: petra-sitte.de , March 15, 2016.
  65. Felicitas von Lovenberg , Helmut Mayer and Michael Hanfeld : Maschmeyer had the invoices for Wulff's book changed. In: FAZ.net . December 20, 2011, accessed December 14, 2014 .
  66. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 221
  67. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 236
  68. An industry in motion: Manfred Bissinger and KircherBurkhardt establish strategic partnership. In: C3 Creative Code and Content , October 22, 2013.
  69. Bissinger [+]
  70. ^ Kai-Hinrich Renner: Agencies KNSK and Bissinger + merge. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , November 30, 2017.
  71. Conrad Breyer: Andreas Siefke is leaving KNSK and Bissinger Plus. In: W&V , December 14, 2017.
  72. Kim Alexandra Notz. In: Hamburg Media School , 2013, accessed on January 28, 2018.
  73. Jürgen Scharrer: What the budding KNSK boss says about content marketing. In: horizont.net , November 30, 2017.
  74. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 228
  75. Frank Patalong : Hit for the opponent. In: Spiegel Online . September 6, 2005, accessed December 14, 2014 .
  76. Dirk Müller: “I'm not a nuclear lobbyist.” Public appeal to extend the life of the nuclear power plants. In: Deutschlandfunk , 23 August 2010, an interview with Manfred Bissinger.
  77. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 230
  78. a b c d Manfred Bissinger (70). In: BuchMarkt , October 5, 2010.
  79. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 165
  80. a b Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 182
  81. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 185
  82. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 255
  83. Doris Banuscher: Party with many favorite friends. In: WamS , October 17, 2010.
  84. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 13
  85. a b Ulrike Simon: Perpetrator and victim: Manfred Bissinger is 70 years old. The thing with the note. In: Berliner Zeitung , October 5, 2010.
  86. Jürgen Scharrer: Agency boss Manfred Bissinger: "We work kiosk-compatible". In: horizont.net , October 19, 2015.
  87. Manfred Bissinger: Discussion about content marketing. Who was the killer? In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 11, 2017.
  88. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, pp. 203f.
  89. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 242
  90. Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 211
  91. Dagmar Haas-Pilwat: Celebrity photographer Dieter Eikelpoth has died. In: Rheinische Post , September 16, 2015.