Editing Axel Springer (section)

== Career under the Hitler regime ==
Axel Caesar Springer was born 2 May 1912 in [[Altona, Hamburg|Altona]], a borough of [[Hamburg]], the son of Ottilie (née Müller)<ref>{{citation
  |title=Geschichte und Analyse des Springer-Konzerns (I)
  |url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45465479.html
  |author=
  |work=[[Der Spiegel]]
  |year=1968
  |volume=
  |issue=2
  |series=2 December
  |pages=62
  |quote=
  |access-date=2 December 2023
  |archive-date=1 January 2017
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101181431/http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45465479.html
  |url-status=live
  }}</ref> and [[:de:Hinrich Springer|Hinrich Springer]]. The senior Springer owned a small printing and publishing firm, Hammerich & Lesser-Verla, and was the treasurer of the [[Centrism|centrist]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Stephen J. |url=http://archive.org/details/weimarrepublic00lees |title=The Weimar Republic |date=1998 |publisher=London; New York : Routledge |others=Library Genesis |isbn=978-0-415-17178-6}}</ref> or [[Centre-left politics|centre-left]]<ref name="LeftWingLiberal">{{cite book |author=Orlow |first=Dietrich |url=https://archive.org/details/weimarprussia19100orlo |title=Weimar Prussia, 1918–1925: The Unlikely Rock of Democracy |date=15 December 1986 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-7640-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/weimarprussia19100orlo/page/329 329] |url-access=registration}}</ref> [[German Democratic Party]] (Deutsche Demokratische Partei).<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum, Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik |title=Gerade auf LeMO gesehen: LeMO Biografie: Axel Cäsar Springer |url=https://www.hdg.de/lemo/biografie/axel-springer.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=www.hdg.de |language=de |archive-date=18 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918072952/https://www.hdg.de/lemo/biografie/axel-springer.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

After being apprenticed as a compositor he worked on his father’s paper, ''Altonaer Nachrichten.'' Following [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power|Hitler's assumption of untrammeled power]] in 1933, new press ordinances made Springer directly accountable to the [[Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Ministry of Propaganda]],<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-10-04 |title=Nazi Germany's Schriftleitergesetz: The End of Freedom of the Press |url=https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/nazi-germanys-schriftleitergesetz-the-end-of-freedom-of-the-press/ |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=Arolsen Archives |language=en-GB |archive-date=2 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202210110/https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/nazi-germanys-schriftleitergesetz-the-end-of-freedom-of-the-press/ |url-status=live }}</ref> although as editor of the sports and business pages he may have remained relatively free of [[Nazi Party|Nazi-party]] dictation.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="Kerr2">{{cite news |last1=Kerr |first1=Peter |date=23 September 1985 |title=Axel Springer, German Publisher, is Dead at 73 |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/23/world/axel-springer-german-publisher-is-dead-at-73.html |access-date=15 February 2021 |archive-date=18 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018211344/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/23/world/axel-springer-german-publisher-is-dead-at-73.html |url-status=live }}</ref> After paper shortages shut the daily in 1941, he stayed with the firm printing literary works until [[Bombing of Hamburg in World War II|Allied air raids]] in 1944 destroyed both the business premises and the family home.<ref>von Arnim, Tim (2012): ''"Und dann werde ich das größte Zeitungshaus Europas bauen.“ Der Unternehmer Axel Springer.'' Campus, Frankfurt am Main, p. 275, <nowiki>ISBN 978-3-593-39636-1</nowiki></ref>

Notwithstanding its vilification by the Nazis, Springer was a [[jazz]] enthusiast. He played with the possibility of a career in music. His model was the Austrian tenor [[Richard Tauber]], a star of both film and operatic stage who, having a Jewish parent, was also deprecated by the regime.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-10-18 |title=100. Geburtstag: Swing-Kid Axel Springer, eine verhinderte Karriere - WELT |url=https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article13946383/Swing-Kid-Axel-Springer-eine-verhinderte-Karriere.html |access-date=2023-12-02 |website=DIE WELT |language=de |archive-date=2 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202140514/https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article13946383/Swing-Kid-Axel-Springer-eine-verhinderte-Karriere.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1933, Springer married Martha Else Meyer, whose father (like Tauber's) was Jewish. They divorced in 1938. While the divorce papers list Springer's infidelity as grounds (he would have five wives over the course of his 73 years), by 1938 it was clear that his marriage to a person classified, under the [[Nuremberg Laws|new race laws]], as a "half-Jew", a ''[[Mischling]]'', would bar him as an editor and publisher.<ref>{{cite web |title=A editorial Law Enabling Nazi Censorship |url=https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/editorial-law-nazi-censorship-1933/ |website=Alpha History |date=August 2012 |access-date=14 February 2021}}</ref><ref name="Kirchick" /> Springer would later support both Meyer and her mother, who survived the [[Theresienstadt Ghetto]].<ref name="Avidan" /> Springer later commented: "I cannot say I didn't know what was happening. In 1933 I stood on the [[Kurfürstendamm]] in Berlin and watched [[Sturmabteilung|Nazi Storm Troopers]] beating up old Jews. I was a young man, and I couldn't do anything about it. But I never forgot it".<ref name="Goshko">{{cite news |last1=Goshko |first1=John |title=Axel Springer: Germany's Luce |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83M00914R002800050073-1.pdf |access-date=15 February 2021 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=22 April 1973 |archive-date=10 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710181114/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83M00914R002800050073-1.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1934, Springer joined the [[National Socialist Motor Corps|National Socialist Motorist Corps]] (''Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps'', NSKK). He later claimed that this was to secure "a Nazi-uniformed buffer" for his family "in an organization that did not make any major ideological commitments and that allowed politics to be combined with the motorsport that I loved so much.”<ref>{{Cite web |last=Posche |first=Ulrike |date=2008-02-29 |title=Aus dem Leben eines Taugewas |url=https://www.stern.de/politik/geschichte/biografie-axel-springer-aus-dem-leben-eines-taugewas-3081944.html |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=stern.de |language=de |archive-date=2 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202210327/https://www.stern.de/politik/geschichte/biografie-axel-springer-aus-dem-leben-eines-taugewas-3081944.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Other NSKK members who would go on to occupy prominent positions in the post-war [[Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1990)|Federal Republic]] offered similar careerist explanations, among them Springer's future rival in publishing [[Franz Burda]], [[Franz Josef Strauss]] who was to lead [[Bavaria]]'s ruling [[Christian Social Union in Bavaria|Christian Social Union]], and (a purportedly inactive party member)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kurt Georg Kiesinger {{!}} Chancellor of Germany, CDU leader, WW2 diplomat {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kurt-Georg-Kiesinger |access-date=2023-12-03 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |archive-date=7 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507030457/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kurt-Georg-Kiesinger |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]], West Germany's third [[Chancellor of Germany|Chancellor]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Hascher |first=Michael |date=2006 |title=Motorisierung und "Volksgemeinschaft": Das Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK), 1931-1945 (review) |id={{Project MUSE|204981}} |journal=Technology and Culture |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=857–858 |doi=10.1353/tech.2006.0228 |s2cid=110344018 |issn=1097-3729}}</ref> Contrary to their picture of a relatively "apolitical" motorist club, the NSKK was a paramilitary organisation,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Seidler |first=Franz W. |date=1984 |title=Das Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps und die Organisation Todt im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Die Entwicklung des NSKK bis 1939 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30197352 |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=625–636 |jstor=30197352 |issn=0042-5702 |access-date=1 December 2023 |archive-date=15 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231215205638/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30197352 |url-status=live }}</ref> implicated in the regime's racist policy of exclusion and discrimination (it screened its members for [[Aryan]] traits) and in the [[Antisemitism|anti-semitic]] [[Kristallnacht|pogroms of 1938]].<ref name=":2" />