Out of the Ashes

Before Adolf Hitler came to power, Berlin's house of Ullstein was the biggest, wealthiest publishing company in Europe. It published Germany's biggest newspaper, the Berliner Morgenpost (circ. 600,000), its biggest illustrated magazine, the famed Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (circ. 2,000,000), and its most influential weekly, the Gruene Post (circ. 1,000,000). The House of Ullstein also published three other Berlin daily newspapers, two weeklies, ten monthlies and some 2,000,000 books a year. Its headquarters occupied a city block along Berlin's Kochstrasse, and it employed 10,000 workers, made yearly profits of some 20 million Reichsmarks (then $6,200,000) a year.

Leopold Ullstein, a Jewish paper dealer, had started the company in 1877 when he bought the money-losing Neue Berliner Tageblatt (circ. 4,000). He put it on its feet, bought other moribund newspapers and kept expanding. After his death in 1899, his five sons--Hans, Louis, Franz, Rudolf, Hermann--proved equally shrewd, expanded more. They made one big mistake: they thought Adolf Hitler's Jew-baiting was merely campaign oratory. When they still had time to turn the tremendous power of their newspapers and magazines against the rise of Naziism, the Ullstein brothers did nothing. When Hitler came to power, it was too late.

Doorman into Despot. The company's doorman turned out to be the head of 150 Nazis among the house's employees, and soon he was telling the Ullsteins whom to hire & fire and what to print. After all Jewish editors were fired, the Ullsteins were ordered to sell out to non-Jews. For the enterprise, easily worth $20 million, the brothers had to take about $4,300,000 from a buyer who was not named. He turned out to be Hitler himself. Soon the Nazis milked the Ullsteins of most of the $4,300,000 with trumped-up taxes, special levies, fines, etc. Hans and Louis died, and the other three fled the country--Rudolf to England, Franz and Hermann to the U.S. Ex-Millionaire Hermann came out of Germany with 10 marks (about $3.60).

Defeat into Victory. In World War II, allied bombs just about demolished the Ullstein block along the Kochstrasse, but printing presses in a skyscraper near the Tempelhof airport were little damaged. They continued to pour forth Goebbels' Das Reich and the screaming Der Angriff until the end. The Red army carted off two of the plant's finest presses, but when the U.S. took over the sector, the remaining presses still made it the biggest printing plant in Europe. It rolled out the U.S. Army's Allgemeine Zeitung and later five other West Berlin dailies and ten weeklies.

In 1949, with all of his brothers dead, Rudolf Ullstein went back to Berlin to try to get back the property. The trouble was that the sale to the Nazis had been legal, and the city of Berlin had confiscated the plants, as it had all Nazi property. Rudolf fought on anyway, fearfully flitting in & out of the plant to keep an eye on it, although always using the back door.

Last week, after a German court ordered the property restored to the family, into the U.S. High Commissioner's office tottered 77-year-old Rudolf Ullstein, on the arm of his nephew Karl. As he signed the document of restitution, tears of joy streamed down the old man's face. With his property he got problems galore--back taxes, licenses, scant and high-priced newsprint. But these will be problems for Karl and his cousins, who will run Ullstein's. For old Rudolf, victory alone was enough. "Now," said he, "I can walk through the front door of my house again."

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