The Unseld name is history – the end of an era at Suhrkamp
Published: Monday, Oct 28th 2024, 09:10
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Once upon a time, Marcel Reich-Ranicki called almost every day and wanted to hear the latest gossip from the editors he trusted: "What's new on Lindenstrasse?". In his conversation with Raimund Fellinger (1951-2020), Reich-Ranicki (1920-2013) was not referring to the ARD series Lindenstrasse. Lindenstrasse 29-35 was the address of the Suhrkamp publishing house headquarters in Frankfurt am Main at the time.
It was a long time ago. The former headquarters in Frankfurt's Westend has long since been demolished. Since 2010, the publishing house founded in 1950 by Peter Suhrkamp (1891-1959), which was managed by Siegfried Unseld for decades after his death and which shaped the intellectual climate in this country for a long time, has been based in Berlin. There is now something new there in Torstrasse.
New sole owner
From November, Hamburg investor Dirk Möhrle (61) will be the sole owner of the publishing house, whose program is sometimes solemnly described as the intellectual silverware of the German-speaking world - with authors such as Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, Max Frisch, Hermann Hesse, Christa Wolf, Peter Handke, Jürgen Habermas, Peter Sloterdijk and many more.
"We are looking forward to working with Dirk Möhrle," says publisher Jonathan Landgrebe. The change of ownership will give Suhrkamp new scope and the simplified structures will make work easier. "In a changed market environment, we will continue to show that good books and good sales are not mutually exclusive," adds CEO Landgrebe. "The books of our authors are always our top priority."
Many industry observers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, for whom the publishing house has always remained a very special cultural topic - even during the years of wrangling and disputes behind the scenes in earlier years - hope the same.
"The fact that the crown jewels of German intellectual life now suddenly belong to a man whose family has amassed a considerable fortune thanks to successful DIY stores is an astonishing turn of events that the interested public will first have to digest," commented Die Zeit, for example.
The weekly newspaper recently made the events surrounding the publishing house the number one topic of conversation at the Frankfurt Book Fair. There, it spoke to Möhrle, who once managed the Max Bahr DIY chain and fell out with parts of his family over its sale.
Ulla Unseld-Berkéwicz hands over responsibility
It was "the joy of the intellectual challenge", the 61-year-old told "Die Zeit" about his reasons for buying Suhrkamp. And: "The fact that I'm doing this should definitely be seen as a signal in the industry that books have a future." The company's situation - and Möhrle, who has held 39 percent of the publishing house since 2015, weighs up every word here - is "tense, but the publishing house is not in trouble".
The "Siegfried and Ulla Unseld Family Foundation", chaired by Ulla Unseld-Berkéwicz (75), and the Ströher family are withdrawing as shareholders. The Unseld name at Suhrkamp is now a thing of the past.
Joachim Unseld (71), who once left the publishing house in a rude dispute with his father and patriarch Siegfried Unseld (1924-2002), has been running his own publishing house, Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, for decades. He does not comment on the current events at Suhrkamp.
At the end of September, to mark Siegfried Unseld's 100th birthday, the publisher published the volume "One Hundred Letters". Unseld wrote many letters to authors such as Ingeborg Bachmann and Samuel Beckett. The company diary, Siegfried Unseld's self-titled "Chronicle", is also exciting and contains many a blasphemy. It has been made available online together with the German Literature Archive in Marbach.
Unseld's widow Unseld-Berkéwicz also referred to Unseld's milestone birthday when the new ownership structure was announced at the beginning of October: "It was time to hand over the responsibility that Siegfried Unseld 'demanded' of me, as Bertolt Brecht put it." Her work came to an end on Siegfried Unseld's 100th birthday.
Möhrle trusts his publisher Landgrebe
In his first interview after the "spectacular coup" (F.A.Z.), Möhrle told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine": "There can be no talk of a hostile takeover, rather a friendly takeover." There was no dispute. In his own words, he has never bought anything "only to sell it again at a profit a few years later".
Möhrle emphasizes that he will rely on publisher Landgrebe (47) as an industry outsider for the actual business. He is an entrepreneur, "a traditional Hamburg businessman". "I don't understand the original publishing business. I read the books, see what works and what doesn't, but I could never make predictions."
Suhrkamp is a cultural asset that he wants to "protect and preserve". "The past is important, the publishing house also lives from this past. But at some point, the rights will expire for Hesse, Brecht and many other authors, which means it must also be about leading this traditional publishing house into the future."
The legendary literary critic Reich-Ranicki would probably be delighted with words like these from Möhrle, who made a lot of money with real estate investments in Berlin, if he could still call today. "What's new on Torstrasse?"
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