Editing Axel Springer (section)

== The Spiegel affair ==
{{Main|Spiegel affair}}
On 26 October 1962, the [[Hamburg]] offices of ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' were raided and closed by police. The publisher, [[Rudolf Augstein]], along with the weekly's two editors-in-chief and a reporter were arrested. Defence minister [[Franz Josef Strauss]] levelled accusations of treason (''Landesverrat'') in respect to an article detailing NATO projections of "unimaginable chaos" in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike and criticising the government's lack of preparedness. In a statement he was later obliged to recant, Strauss denied that he had initiated the police action.<ref name=spg>{{cite news|last=Gunkel|first=Christoph|title=50th Anniversary of the 'Spiegel Affair': A Watershed Moment for West German Democracy|journal=Der Spiegel|date=21 September 2012|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/50th-anniversary-of-the-spiegel-affair-a-857030.html|access-date=26 August 2013|archive-date=22 September 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120922072308/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/50th-anniversary-of-the-spiegel-affair-a-857030.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Although Augstein was a liberal critic, Springer offered his presses, teletypes and office space so ''Der Spiegel'' could keep on publishing.<ref name="Blair">{{cite journal |last1=Blair |first1=Fraser |title=How Adenauer awakened German democracy: he raided the people's paper |journal=Maclean's |date=1 December 1962 |url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1962/12/1/how-adenauer-awakened-german-democracy-he-raided-the-peoples-paper |access-date=13 February 2021}}</ref> It was, however, at the cost of further access to ''Die Welt'' that columnist [[Sebastian Haffner]] took to the ''[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]'' to pronounce on the violation of press freedom and constitutional norms.<ref>{{Citation | last = Taylor | first = Frederick | title = Exorcising Hitler | place = London | publisher = Bloomsbury Press | year = 2011 | page = 371| title-link = Exorcising Hitler }}.</ref><ref name="Soukup">{{cite book |last1=Soukup |first1=Uwe |title=Ich bin nun mal Deutscher. Sabastian Haffner, Eine Biographie |date=2001 |publisher=Aufbau Verlag |location=Berlin |isbn=3-596-15642-4}}</ref>

Adenauer appears to have been sufficiently convinced of Springer's political reliability, that when in October 1963 he resigned as [[Chancellor of Germany|chancellor]], he suggested (perhaps playfully) to ''Bild'' Editor-in-Chief [[Peter Boenisch]] that the publisher might be the "politician" best fitted to continue his policies.<ref>{{Cite web|title=How Adenauer suggested Axel Springer as his successor|url=https://www.axelspringer.com/en/inside/how-adenauer-suggested-axel-springer-as-his-successor|access-date=6 March 2021|website=Axel Springer SE|language=en-GB|archive-date=23 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923173432/https://www.axelspringer.com/en/inside/how-adenauer-suggested-axel-springer-as-his-successor|url-status=live}}</ref>