Editing Axel Springer (section)

== Opposition to Brandt and Ostpolitik ==
Springer maintained a position, not itself welcome on the conservative right, that Germans had themselves to blame for their country's division: "What Germany did under Hitler was terrible, and we were destined to suffer for it". But noting that "the people in the other part of Germany were no more guilty than those of us over here", he insisted that they deserved "same kind of chance" at rehabilitation that democratic and market freedoms had allowed their compatriots in the west.<ref name="Goshko" /> On that basis, he refused any recognition that might "normalise" the East German [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany|SED]] regime. When [[Berlin Wall|the Wall]] went up in Berlin in 1961, Springer built his 22-storey headquarters flush up against it in the centre of the city, so that every day it might look over, and be seen from, what his writers regularly referred to as the [[Soviet Occupation Zone]] (German: ''Sowjetische Besatzungszone'' or ''SBZ''). While dissenters, such as [[Sebastian Haffner]] concluded that there was now no alternative to formal recognition,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lange |first1=Nils |title=Von Kommunisten und Kolumnisten Sebastian Haffner, Matthias Walden und das Problem der Anerkennung der DDR |year=2018 |publisher=Ernste Reuter Hefte |isbn=978-3-95410-215-0}}</ref> Springer was unyielding. He condemned the accommodationist [[Ostpolitik]] pursued from 1969 by Brandt.

Springer's hostility to the SED regime was reciprocated. Over the course of two years from 1968 to 1970, GDR state television aired a lavishly-produced 10-hour miniseries, ''Ich – Axel Cäsar Springer'', depicting the media magnate as the puppet of a secretive, post-war Nazi cabal.<ref>Jochen Staadt, Tobias Voigt, Stefan Wolle: ''Feind-bild Springer: Ein Verlag Und Seine Gegner''. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2009. {{ISBN|9783525363812}}. pp. 165-166.</ref> At the same time, the East Germans were so impressed by the seeming power of ''Bild'' that between 1957 and 1973 they attempted, with different tabloid formats, to sell their own their ''NEUE Bild Zeitung'' to West Germans crossing the border.<ref>{{Cite web|title=So fälschte die DDR BILD: An der Grenze wurde sie für 10 Pfennig verkauft|url=https://www.bild.de/news/inland/60-jahre-bild/so-faelschte-die-ddr-bild-24947846.bild.html|access-date=17 February 2021|website=bild.de|date=2 July 2012|language=de|archive-date=21 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921111221/https://www.bild.de/news/inland/60-jahre-bild/so-faelschte-die-ddr-bild-24947846.bild.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Springer's efforts, which his writers may have understood as a general means of discrediting the Social Democrats, were unavailing. Blue-collar workers who formed the core of Bild's now declining readership (down 800,000 by 1972) voted for Brandt regardless. Significantly Springer, who had always cited the "poll" at the newspaper and magazine kiosk (''Abstimmung am Kiosk'') as the ultimate justification for his journalism, no matter how controversial,<ref name="Kruip" /> proved willing to adjust.<ref name="Goshko" /> He moved, or parted company with, those in his employ who had been attacking Brandt from ever more extreme right-wing positions. Among these were, [[Peter Boenisch]], chief editor at ''Bild''; and ''[[Welt am Sonntag]]'' columnist [[Willi Schlamm]] (a former Austrian Communist and an American [[John Birch Society|John Bircher]]). Once it was clear that the [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|Christian Democrats]] would not reverse course on recognition, ''Bild'' did begin, albeit in quotation marks, to refer to East Germany as the GDR (the [[German Democratic Republic]]).<ref name=guardian-20200717>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/bild-zeitung-tabloid-julian-reichelt-angela-merkel-germany |title=Bild, Merkel and the culture wars: the inside story of Germany's biggest tabloid |last=Meaney |first=Thomas |newspaper=The Guardian |date=17 July 2020 |access-date=17 July 2020 |archive-date=18 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200818174352/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/bild-zeitung-tabloid-julian-reichelt-angela-merkel-germany |url-status=live }}</ref>

From August 1971 Günter Prinz, Boenisch's successor at ''Bild'', restored the paper's circulation by returning to a less politically charged "mix of sex, facts und fiction".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jacobi |first=Claus |date=2002 |title=Bild wrd 50 |url=http://www.axelspringer.de/inhalte/pressese/inhalte/fotolounge/texte_bild/jacobi.htm |access-date=2023-12-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202053709/http://www.axelspringer.de/inhalte/pressese/inhalte/fotolounge/texte_bild/jacobi.htm |archive-date=2 February 2007 }}</ref>

=== Brandt's ''Kniefall von Warschau'' ===
{{Main|Kniefall von Warschau}}
Springer's son, Axel Springer Jr. (1941–1980), was the photographer and journalist "Sven Simon", and was for a period chief editor of ''[[Welt am Sonntag]]''. In 1980, at the age of 38, he took his own life. He is perhaps best remembered for his iconic picture of [[Kniefall von Warschau|Willi Brandt kneeling]] on 7 December 1970 before the memorial to [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sontheimer |first1=Michael |title=Willy Brandt in Warschau, Kniefall vor der Geschichte |url=https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/willy-brandt-in-warschau-a-946886.html |access-date=14 February 2021 |work=Der Spiegel |date=6 December 2020 |archive-date=7 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207101235/https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/willy-brandt-in-warschau-a-946886.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The occasion of Brandt's visit to Poland was the signing of the [[Treaty of Warsaw (1970)|Treaty of Warsaw]] between [[West Germany]] and [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]]. This recognised the [[Oder–Neisse line|Oder-Neisse Line]] as Germany's final frontier in the east and, on that basis, established diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic and the [[Polish People's Republic|People's Republic of Poland]]. Writing himself in ''Die Welt'', Springer expressed outrage that a democratically elected German government should license a Communist regime in its annexation of a quarter of the country. In ''Bild,'' Boenisch remarked that, while Brandt attempted "kneel away" the crimes of the Nazis, the victims of his Stalinist hosts were being made to kneel by rifle butts to the groin.<ref>{{Cite web|title="Bild" lässt Willy Brandt für sich knien — BILDblog|date=11 July 2007|url=https://bildblog.de/2372/bild-laesst-willy-brandt-fuer-sich-knien/|access-date=24 February 2021|language=de-DE|archive-date=7 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207071923/https://bildblog.de/2372/bild-laesst-willy-brandt-fuer-sich-knien/|url-status=live}}</ref>