A Bet on Berlin

High overhead, Communist jets traced white contrails in a sky of startling blue. A bare 150 feet away, residents of Communist East Berlin gawked from windows. Just across the border in West Berlin, Publisher Axel C. Springer, 47, last week confidently laid the cornerstone of a $4,700,000, 35-story headquarters for his press empire, the most powerful on the Continent. Springer's three wishes as he gave the cornerstone its traditional three raps: "Unity and justice and freedom."

Coming two days before the deadline originally set by Nikita Khrushchev for the West to quit West Berlin, Springer's ceremony was particularly symbolic. "The fact that we lay this cornerstone today right at the edge of the sector boundary," said he, "is an expression of our fast faith in the historical unity of Germany."

For suave, savvy Axel Springer (TIME, Nov. 11, 1957), the bold bet on the future was the latest step in a spectacular career. The unknown son of a small Hamburg book publisher, Springer brooded out the war in the parks of Hamburg (a respiratory ailment kept him out of military service), decided that the traditionally dark, hearty brew of German journalism needed a bit of tang and a fleck of foam. He founded his empire in 1946 on the radio weekly Hoer zu! (Listen), is now sole owner of three magazines (and one-third owner of two more), ranging from the gossipy Das Nvue Blatt to the Scientific Kristall, three Hamburg dailies, including the busty, bustling Bild-Zeitung (circ. 3,269,164--West Germany's largest) and the influential, intellectual Die Welt (circ. 244,016).

In his paneled penthouse in Hamburg, Publisher Springer lives up to his middle name of Caesar, is surrounded by awed aides who dutifully scramble each morning on the floor of his bedroom for the notes he has tossed off the night before. In the crisis years of West Germany, Springer has professed no party allegiance, insists: "We do not print politics--we print about politics."

Though his papers--particularly Die Welt--have often tempered their pro-Western stands by urging a more conciliatory approach to Russia, Springer's empire has gradually swung toward a firm, unified support of the West's stand on Berlin during the past six months. Says Publisher Springer: "I believe in Germany, a Germany with Berlin as its capital. But not only do I believe in Germany --I want this Germany. And that's why I'm building now in Berlin.''

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