Mathias Döpfner

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Mathias Döpfner (2011)

Mathias Oliver Christian Döpfner (born January 15, 1963 in Bonn ) is a German manager and lobbyist . He is CEO of Axel Springer SE and President of the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers .

Life

Mathias Döpfner grew up in Offenbach am Main . His mother was a housewife and his father Dieter C. Döpfner was a university professor of architecture and from 1966 to 1970 director of the Offenbacher Werkkunstschule . Döpfner studied musicology , German literature and theater studies in Frankfurt am Main and Boston . In 1990 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD. The title of his dissertation is: Music Criticism in Germany after 1945 .

He began his career in 1982 as a music critic for the feature pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). After working as a FAZ correspondent in Brussels and as managing director of a subsidiary of the Winderstein concert agency, Döpfner switched to Gruner + Jahr in 1992 . At first he worked for the board member Axel Ganz in Paris , later assistant to the board chairman Gerd Schulte-Hillen . In April 1994 Döpfner became editor-in-chief of the Berlin weekly newspaper Wochenpost . In 1996 he took over the position of editor-in-chief of the Hamburger Morgenpost . In March 1998 he switched to the Axel Springer newspaper Die Welt as editor-in-chief . Under his leadership, the content and appearance of the sheet were revised. In July 2000 Döpfner became a member of the Management Board of Axel Springer. Since October 2000 he has also acted as a board member for newspapers, and since January 2002 Döpfner has been acting chairman of the board, succeeding August A. Fischer .

By spring 2006, Döpfner had reduced the number of employees by a third. At the same time, Springer sold loss-making subsidiaries. The merger of the editorial offices of Die Welt and Berliner Morgenpost that he ordered was controversial . Under Döpfner's aegis, the takeover of the TV company ProSiebenSat.1 was arranged in August 2005 . However, this ultimately failed due to the ban by the Federal Cartel Office , which was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice in 2010. In June 2007, Axel Springer SE acquired the majority in the postal service provider PIN Group . The legal introduction of a minimum wage for postal services eliminated the decisive competitive advantage of private postal service providers. The participation in the PIN Group turned out to be a bad investment. In December 2007, Axel Springer SE wrote off the stake and withdrew from the postal business.

capital

With an annual salary of 11 million euros, Döpfner is said to have been the best-paid manager in Germany in 2009, according to Manager Magazin estimates . Axel Springer SE described this estimate as grossly incorrect and dubious. The total remuneration shown in the annual report includes payments for former members of the Management Board and does not allow any information on the distribution of salaries of the four Management Board members. Döpfner is considered a close confidante of the major shareholder of the Springer Group and widow of the founder of the company, Axel Springer, Friede Springer , who is the godmother of his second son. In August 2012, on the occasion of her 70th birthday, Springer gave Döpfner a share of two percent worth around 73 million euros. It is said that she wanted to reward Döpfner's course as well as her personal friendship and continue to bind him closely to the company. Together with other share purchases, Döpfner's share is 3.2 percent (as of February 2017).

In 2016, the business magazine Bilanz put Döpfner's fortune at 150 million euros. This made Döpfner the 659th richest person in Germany.

Mandates and memberships

Düzen Tekkal , Friede Springer , Mathias Döpfner, Kai Diekmann and Julian Reichelt on the roof of the US Embassy in Berlin (2019)

Mathias Döpfner was a member of the supervisory board of the pharmaceutical company Schering from 2001 to 2006 . From July 2006 to June 2018 he was a member of the supervisory board of the US media group Time Warner , and from April 2015 to July he was a director of the Vodafone Group Public Limited Company. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Warner Music since May 2014 and of the Board of Directors of Netflix since September 2018 .

Since July 2016 Döpfner has been President of the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). His mandates in non-profit organizations include memberships in the supervisory bodies of the European Publishers Council (EPC), the American Academy in Berlin , the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford and the American Jewish Committee.

He was a member of the board of trustees of the Berlin Aspen Institute , he is also a regular participant of the Sun Valley Conference, the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been a participant since 2007 and has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Conference since 2018 . He is a member of the board of trustees of the International Journalists Program (IJP) eV and has been chairman of the TOA Open Circle since 2018.

Döpfner was also a member of the board of directors of Ripplewood Holdings (RHJI). In July 2009, some media made a factual connection between Döpfner's commitment to the financial investor fighting for Opel and the positive reports on this in some of the Springer Group's media. Döpfner's personal connections were not discussed in the media reports of the Springer Group on RHJI.

Journalistic and journalistic activities

The first aired on July 12, 2009 Döpfner's film My Friend George Weidenfeld .

His media policy contributions include keynote speeches, e. B. at the NOAH Conference Berlin 2015 or at the Spiegel Publishers Forum, which dealt with the establishment of paid online content and the delimitation of private and public media in digital channels.

On the occasion of Axel Springer's 100th birthday in May 2012, Döpfner showed his personal view of the founder of the publishing house and presented a fictitious letter to the publisher. In an open letter to the Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, he criticized the search engine company.

On April 10, 2016, Döpfner expressed his solidarity with the satirist Jan Böhmermann in an open letter . He had previously illustrated the difference between satire and vicious criticism in his show Neo Magazin Royale using a poem about Turkish President Erdoğan ( Böhmermann affair ) and thus triggered resentment in the Turkish government and public prosecutor's investigations in Germany.

Döpfner had some of his contributions published by the Axis of the Good and is listed there as a guest author.

Villas Schöningen, Henckel and Schlieffen

In 2007 Döpfner acquired together with the Chief Executive Officer of RHJI, Leonhard Fischer , the right on the Glienicke Bridge location Villa Schöningen . On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a German-German museum was opened there on November 8, 2009 by Chancellor Angela Merkel , Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and former US Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger . The purely privately financed project documents the events at the agent bridge during the Cold War in the permanent exhibition on the ground floor. Temporary exhibitions of contemporary art are shown on the first floor. The artists shown in solo exhibitions so far include Andreas Slominski (Summer 2012), Georg Baselitz (The Berlin Years, Spring 2012), Andy Warhol (Early Works, Spring 2011) and Anselm Kiefer (Europe, Autumn 2010) and Martin Kippenberger (Summer 2010 ), Olaf Metzel (2014) and Jorinde Voigt (spring 2018).

Since 2014, Döpfner has been involved in securing and maintaining the property of the Henckel and Schlieffen villas for cultural purposes , which has also been publicly criticized because of a potentially unfavorable relationship between personal use and expense. This has been referred to as a “privatization of public green spaces” by residents. The original shape of the associated park should then be restored.

Lobbying and controversy

EU copyright reform

Döpfner has been campaigning for ancillary copyright law for press publishers at national and EU level for many years . The journalist Stefan Niggemeier attested him public false statements in 2018. As a result of the planned EU copyright reform , which provides for such an ancillary copyright at EU level, the journalist Friedhelm Greis from the IT specialist portal Golem.de analyzed various statements by Döpfner and came to the same conclusion. Döpfner claimed that “bloggers in particular” would benefit from the reform. In fact, these are expressly excluded from European ancillary copyright law. Döpfner also denied the accusation that Axel Springer Verlag would particularly benefit from the new regulation. In fact, according to an investigation, this would probably receive around 2/3 of all income. Döpfner further claimed that the discontinuation of Google News in Spain as a result of the ancillary copyright law there was very positive for the publishers: “The traffic therefore collapsed for everyone in absolute numbers, but the direct traffic to the offers of the publishers increased drastically. And that could be monetized much better. The publishers in Spain have clearly benefited economically ”. Döpfner was unable to substantiate this statement when asked. In fact, a study by the EU Commission only reveals the drop in traffic. Before that, Döpfner had met with the former Digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger and the EU Parliament's rapporteur on copyright reform, Axel Voss .

Statements about the right-wing extremist attack in Halle 2019

Döpfner published a comment on the anti-Semitically motivated attack in Halle on October 9, 2019 in the daily newspaper Die Welt : He briefly summarized what had happened and then went into other anti-Semitic incidents that were caused by various groups of perpetrators, among others. a. Had been committed by immigrants. In this context, he also put a suspected identity deception of the football professional Bakery Jatta . Döpfner also complained about vital xenophobia, the handling of which currently works like a fire accelerator. He saw the main cause of what he saw as a “constitutionally very dubious refugee policy”, “a far too weakly staffed and poorly equipped police force”, “an overburdened and in some cases also unwilling to act administration and judiciary”, “a political elite that suppressed realities or is removed from them ”as well as“ a media elite that too often conjures up and describes things as they should be rather than describing the situation ”. Döpfner also drew the line to the “15–30 year olds”, who were particularly politically active in environmental movements. He noted that in addition to an “important fight against a responsible climate policy”, political activism against the emerging anti-Semitism should also be taken into account: “It would have been a nice gesture if on the day of Halle the demonstrators of the Extinction Rebellion- Movement when it came to real extinction, dismantled their tents on Potsdamer Platz and walked closed to the vigil in front of the synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse. ”In conclusion, he said that he did not want to live in a country where ecological commitment was considered considered more important than avoiding the killing of people of a different skin color or because they are Jews.

This article sparked a substantive debate. Deniz Yücel stated in a comment in DIE WELT: “You can follow him at many points, but not at some. Above all, however, at some point the curve is so far that the actual occasion - the right-wing terrorist attack in Halle - withers into a sort of minor matter. This creates an imbalance that cannot be in Döpfner's sense. [...] Of course Mathias Döpfner is allowed to write that and should also be allowed to write that if he wasn't the head of a media company. In general, the verb “may” is misleading in this context, since it refers to rules and norms; to object to a violation of this means to demand sanctions. But apart from matters relevant to criminal law, which are a matter for the courts to determine, the following applies to political discourse: Everyone is allowed to do anything. "

Private

Döpfner and his wife Ulrike, née Weiss - daughter of the former board member (1979–1998) of Deutsche Bank Ulrich Weiss - have three sons together. With Julia Stoschek , he has had another son since 2016. He describes himself as a non-Jewish Zionist .

Awards

The presentation of the Shepard Stone Award was criticized by Eva Werner, spokeswoman for the German Association of Journalists : “The fact that it happened so short after leaving the Board of Trustees casts a shadow over the award.” The media scientist Uwe Krüger judged that “here a prize was awarded within the family, so to speak, ie a certain elite group confirms itself and receives it ".

Publications

  • Mathias OC Döpfner, Thomas Garms: Neue Deutsche Welle. Art or fashion? Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Vienna: Ullstein, 1984, ISBN 3-548-36505-1 (Ullstein-Buch, 36505; popular culture).
  • Mathias OC Döpfner, Thomas Garms: Eroticism in Music. Frankfurt / Main; Berlin: Ullstein, 1986, 208 pages, ISBN 3-548-36517-5 (Ullstein book, 36517; popular culture).
  • Mathias OC Döpfner: Music criticism in Germany after 1945. Trends in content and form; a critical analysis. At the same time: Dissertation, University of Frankfurt (Main), 1990. Frankfurt am Main; Bern; New York; Paris: Lang, 1991, 334 pages, ISBN 3-631-43158-9 (European University Writings , Series 36, Musicology Volume 59).
  • Brussels. The insider lexicon. Munich: Beck, 1993, 156 pages, ISBN 3-406-37397-6 (Beck'sche series; 1007).
  • Axel Springer. New looks at the publisher; an edition of current author contributions and own texts. Ed .: Mathias Döpfner. Hamburg: Springer, 2005, 256 pages, ISBN 3-9809879-9-X .
  • Reform instead of subsidy - Why we need reliable legal standards for merger projects and protection of creative services . In: Krautscheid / Schwartmann (Ed.): Shackles for diversity? The right of media concentration to the test . CF Müller Verlag, Heidelberg 2010.
  • In the digital age, publishers are stronger than they think . In: Hubert Burda, Mathias Döpfner, Bodo Hombach, Jürgen Rüttgers (eds.): 2020 - thoughts on the future of the internet . Klartext, Essen, 2010, pp. 177–182. ISBN 978-3-8375-0376-0 .
  • How German is it? Reprint of the lecture at the Thomas Demand exhibition “Nationalgalerie”, Suhrkamp 2010.
  • The Freedom Trap - A Report . Berlin: Propylaen, 2011, 256 pages, ISBN 978-3-549-07372-8 .
  • Anselm Kiefer / Mathias Döpfner, Art and Life, Myths and Death. A dispute (Quadriga Verlag, 2012).
  • Reader and customer orientation in a digitized media world - an interim balance sheet , in: Stadler / Brenner / Hermann (eds.), Success in the digital age (Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch Verlag, 2012).
  • The world belongs to those who rethink. In: Cardinal Virtues of Effective Leadership. Drucker, Peter F. (Ed.), Munich: Redline Verlag, 2014. ISBN 978-3-86881-396-8 .
  • “Berlin is the heart of Europe, I don't know any other.”: Axel Springer and his city. Berlin: Edition Braus, 288 pages. ISBN 978-3-86228-135-0 .
  • Farewell to pessimism. In: The Idea of ​​the Medium - Speeches on the Future of Journalism / Bernhard Pörksen; Andreas Narr (Ed.), Von Halem, Cologne 2015. ISBN 978-3-86962-146-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Handelsblatt: Matthias Döpfner becomes chief lobbyist for newspaper publishers , July 7, 2016
  2. ^ Wirtschaftswoche: Matthias Döpfner becomes chief lobbyist for newspaper publishers , July 7, 2016
  3. ^ Website of the HfG Offenbach ( Memento from October 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ kress.de, June 25, 2010
  5. ↑ I'm the last to sweat . In: Die Zeit , No. 41/2005
  6. ↑ Der Spiegel: Friede Springer gives Döpfner shares for 70 million euros , August 17, 2012
  7. ↑ Shareholder structure . ( Memento from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Axel Springer SE, as of February 2017, accessed on November 5, 2017.
  8. ↑ https://meedia.de/2016/09/01/deutschlands-superreicher-mathias-doepfner-bilanz-beziffert-privatvermoegen-des-springer-chefs-auf-150-millionen-euro/
  9. ^ PM of July 26, 2001
  10. ↑ Netflix appoints Mathias Döpfner to the Board of Directors. Retrieved May 26, 2020 .
  11. ↑ BDZV press release of July 7, 2016
  12. ^ Officers, Trustees & Counselors ( October 16, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ), The American Academy.
  13. ^ Mathias Döpfner. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .
  14. ↑ http://www.aspeninstitute.de/wp-content/uploads/Aspen+Annual+Report+2011-2012.pdf
  15. ↑ STEERING COMMITTEE. Retrieved May 26, 2020 (English).
  16. ^ German Board of Trustees. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .
  17. ^ Open Circle. Retrieved May 28, 2020 (English).
  18. ^ A b Sonja Pohlmann: Friends for Opel . In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 18, 2009
  19. ↑ cf. z. B .: Ways out of the newspaper crisis . In: Telepolis , July 19, 2009
  20. ↑ Tagesspiegel, July 12, 2009
  21. ↑ Speech by SPIEGEL Publishers Forum, June 5, 2015
  22. ^ FAZ, May 3, 2012
  23. ^ FAZ, April 16, 2014
  24. ^ Mathias Döpfner: Solidarity with Jan Böhmermann! In: Welt am Sonntag , April 10, 2016, accessed on April 11, 2016.
  25. ^ Short profile and articles by Mathias Döpfner on the axis of the good .
  26. ↑ Kurt Kister : From journalist to newspaper seller . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 26, 2013, accessed on April 7, 2016.
  27. ↑ Gabriela Walde: Collectors to power . In: Berliner Morgenpost , September 17, 2015, accessed on April 7, 2016.
  28. ^ Speech by Chancellor Angela Merkel on the occasion of the opening of the Freedom Museum "Villa Schöningen" . bundesregierung.de, November 8, 2009, accessed April 7, 2016.
  29. ^ Rescue for Villa Schlieffen in sight. Retrieved June 22, 2020 .
  30. ↑ fence dispute on Pfingstberg pnn.de, September 30, 2014
  31. ↑ "The Foundation asked me to do so" pnn.de, September 30, 2014
  32. ↑ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/weltkulturerbe-pfingstberg-springer-chef-bricht-streit-in-potsdam-vom-zaun/10776702.html
  33. ↑ SPSG: Villa Schlieffen and Villa Henckel Park are being renovated and made accessible to the public
  34. ↑ https://www.horizont.net/medien/nachrichten/-Doepfner-plaediert-erneut-fuer-ein-Leistungsschutzrecht-94915
  35. ↑ https://uebermedien.de/28591/doepfners-luegen-fuers-leistungsschutzrecht/
  36. ↑ https://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-das-luegen- geht-weiter- 1904-140436.html
  37. ↑ https://meedia.de/2019/04/05/triumph-der-reformunfaehigen-und-der-alten-medienwelt-warum-das-eu-urheberrecht-in-der-vergangenheit-lösungen-bleibt/
  38. ↑ https://netzpolitik.org/2018/eu-urheberrecht-lobby-wettlauf-mit-popstars-und-kondomen/
  39. ↑ Never again "Never again" on welt.de.
  40. ↑ Let's name the problem of right-wing terrorism on welt.de.
  41. ↑ Female takeover: how women in Germany take power, Ulrike Posche (2004), page 44
  42. ↑ Executive Profile Ulrich Weiss , bloomberg.com (accessed November 30, 2016)
  43. ^ Mathias Döpfner der Schönfärber , faz.de, July 25, 2013 , accessed on November 30, 2016
  44. ↑ Catrin Lorch: Because she can. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 3, 2016.
  45. ↑ Julia Stoschek reveals who the father of her son is , inFranken.de from November 26, 2016, accessed on November 30, 2016
  46. ↑ "The arrogant artistic genius has died out" , sueddeutsche.de from November 26, 2016 , accessed on November 30, 2016
  47. ↑ Jobst-Ulrich Brand: Your name: Julia Stoschek Your story: Shareholder of the Brose Group Your concern: the art of moving images. Your nickname: The volcano. In: FOCUS Magazin , No. 22 (2016), May 28, 2016.
  48. ↑ Ürük Bülend: Ürück's notes from our circles. On: kress.de , May 30, 2016.
  49. ↑ WORLD: Confession: I am a non-Jewish Zionist . In: THE WORLD . June 12, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed November 28, 2018]).
  50. ↑ Astrid Ludwig: A variety of relationships . In: Jüdische Allgemeine , June 19, 2016, accessed June 19, 2016.
  51. ^ Central Council of Jews in Germany Kdö.R: Mathias Döpfner receives Leo Baeck Prize. January 18, 2019, accessed May 15, 2019 .
  52. ↑ Axel Springer boss - Aspen Institute honors Aspen alumnus Mathias Döpfner. Retrieved November 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Döpfner, Mathias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Döpfner, Mathias Oliver Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn