Lizenzverleger zwischen Monopol und Wettbewerb

The rebirth of a democratic Germany is characterized, as far as the development of media politics is concerned, by an exceptional situation: Neither possession of capital nor inherited rights of disposal decided who was to be permitted to contribute, as a newspaper producer, to relaunching the media. The decisive features were (1) ideals and moral convictions, (2) courage and the experience of resisting the demands of the »Third Reich«, and (3) qualification as a journalist and/or business manager. In this rare and — when looked at from the point of view of the media — ideal constellation, the so-called licence publishers could secure for themselves great media and economic influence until they had to face the competition of the former and now reinstated publishers after 1949. Whether licenced publishers were able to secure their media ideals and corporate philosophies largely depended on whether they could come to an arrangement with reinstated publishers, and on whether they were able to react appropriately to journalistic and economic challenges. The different solutions chosen in the early years of change still influence the German newspaper system in the 21^st century.