by: Sophie Hardach
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Liz Mohn, the woman behind media giant Bertelsmann: 'books mean a lot to me'. Photo: Luca Teuchmann/WireImage
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In her first public comment on the merger, Mohn, who controls Bertelsmann together with her children, argued that authors will benefit from being part of a bigger group.
“Books do mean a lot to me: Bertelsmann grew big on books, and I myself grew up with them,” Mohn told me. “We will continue to publish books for a mass public as well as works for smaller readerships. The planned combination will give authors from all genres even more publishing options for the success of their books.”
Such options include ebooks, which Mohn believes will “coexist comfortably” with printed books rather than lead to their downfall. She also emphasised that each imprint would make its decisions independently. And Random House is not exactly a literary lightweight: Haruki Murakami, John Irving and Ian McEwan are among its authors.
However, encouraging independent decision-making is not quite the same as having a range of independent publishers. On a recent New York Times bestseller list, 11 out of 15 titles were published by an imprint belonging to either Penguin or Random House. Agents often try to raise an author’s advance through a bidding war, but why would imprints owned by the same group bid against each other?
Competition authorities may yet object to the merger. Murdoch himself has publicly challenged authors and agents to protest. After his own plans for Penguin were foiled, he turned to mocking Bertelsmann’s provincial home in northern Germany with the fury of a tycoon scorned: “Penguin headquarters to shift from exciting London to err Gutersloh, not far from Harsewinkel,” he sneered on Twitter.
The insult may have been lost on Mohn. At 71, she takes pride in her small-town origins and modest upbringing. Patience and quiet resilience have in fact been key ingredients in her rise from teenage secretary to global tycoon.
Liz Mohn, née Elisabeth Beckmann, was born during a Second World War air raid. Her mother was a milliner; her father became unfit for work after being hit by lightning. She left school at 14 and her prospects in life seemed dull – until she got a job as a secretary at Bertelsmann, where she met Bertelsmann heir Reinhard Mohn during a game of musical chairs at the company’s annual party.
She was a devout Catholic girl of 17 and not even allowed to go out alone at night. He was in his late thirties – and married with three children.
“Fate had brought us together, but in the late 1950s divorce was out of the question,” Liz Mohn writes in her memoir, Key Moments. In 1963, she became pregnant with their first child, Brigitte. To avoid a scandal, she married Joachim Scholz, a children’s books editor at Bertelsmann. She and Reinhard Mohn continued their relationship and went on to have two more children, Christoph and Andreas. Andreas has previously said that he thought Scholz was his real father until he was twelve, even though the editor slept in the cellar.
“Reinhard Mohn tried to spend as much time as he could with us, but the chance of our having a life together was slim,” Liz Mohn writes in her memoir, adding that Mohn would send her a letter every day during that time.
The two did not marry until 1982, having divorced their first spouses. Reinhard Mohn recognised Brigitte, Christoph and Andreas as his children and prepared them for roles in the Bertelsmann empire. None of the three children from his first marriage now holds a top position at the company.
“We were a family formed by the written word,” Andreas Mohn, who lives in Gütersloh, told me in a phone interview. When Andreas was about fourteen, Reinhard began taking him and his siblings on family trips to book fairs in Frankfurt and Jerusalem, where they would be introduced to authors and watch their father give speeches. At Christmas, Liz and Reinhard would read to them; on holidays, Reinhard would pore over catalogues and pick books for the Bertelsmann book club.
“You have certain skills when you’ve grown up with that, you delight in books and literature,” added Andreas Mohn.
Whether those skills are in fact sufficient to steer a global company has been the question at the heart of Bertelsmann since Reinhard Mohn’s death. It’s a question that will partly decide the future course of Penguin Random House. Mohn himself was a fifth-generation owner, but he was wary of letting his children assume they could automatically take over. Liz Mohn, on the other hand, has reinforced the family’s grip.
She, her son Christoph and her daughter Brigitte are on the board of the Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft, which controls all voting rights in the group. Christoph is also the chairman of Bertelsmann’s supervisory board. The Mohns own only about one-fifth of the group on paper, with the charitable Bertelsmann Foundation holding roughly four-fifths, but they effectively rule. No major decision can be taken without their consent, and the family has, for example, prevented Bertelsmann from listing on the stock market. Forbes magazine puts the family’s net worth at $3.5billion.
While Mohn’s reserve marks a contrast to the stereotypical loud tycoon, critics see her influence as problematic precisely because it is less visible, and therefore harder to attack. Take, for example, her role as vice-chair of the Bertelsmann Foundation. Thomas Schuler, a journalist who has written two books about Bertelsmann and the Mohns, argues that the foundation was originally set up by Reinhard Mohn to prevent the company being ripped apart by inheritance tax. Schuler questions whether it was appropriate for the Foundation to become involved in topics such as media regulation in the past, given that Bertelsmann owns the RTL group – Europe’s biggest private broadcaster.
“Now the Foundation is putting a lot of emphasis on education, and education is exactly the area where the company is trying to expand internationally. I don’t quite believe Bertelsmann’s claim that the two are completely unrelated, there’s always a sort of parallel development,” Schuler said in a phone interview.
Bertelsmann is reportedly considering a bid for Springer Science+Business Media, a publisher of scientific journals, as part of a global push into education.
“On my many trips to China and India I’ve noticed that there is a conspicuous thirst for education in these countries, especially among young people,” Liz Mohn said. “Education is the key to social participation – and reading is the key to education.”
This interest in educational projects has not always served her well. In 1995, the Bertelsmann Foundation helped open the Mubarak Public Library, Egypt’s first public library, in Giza. The Foundation’s partner for the project was Suzanne Mubarak, then Egypt’s first lady. The two women developed a cultural exchange programme. In a speech in 2004, Mohn praised “dear Suzanne” for defining reading as a “human right”.
“Neither glory nor vanity nor prestige have led you,” Mohn gushed, “But the will and responsibility to do something for your country and your people.”
Mohn did not mention in her speech that the contents of the Mubarak Library were censored. The library has now apparently been renamed as Misr Public Library, as Egyptians try to erase a family name tainted by corruption and misrule.
“The Bertelsmann Stiftung [Foundation] has for years sponsored a number of measures to promote literacy and reading,” Liz Mohn replied when asked about the library. “The one you mention is one of many, many such projects; and that particular collaboration ended several years ago.”
There is no mention of “dear Suzanne” in her memoir. On the website of the Bertelsmann Foundation, however, the Mubarak Library is still advertised as a project that contributed “to developing freedom of speech”.
It’s not the first time the family has been haunted by past alliances. In 2002, Bertelsmann admitted to having lied about its activities during the Nazi era. The company had for decades presented itself as a brave opponent of the Nazis, when it had in fact published anti-Semitic texts and profited from its ties to the regime.
Bertelsmann’s 53 per cent stake in Penguin Random House could intensify the spotlight on the Mohn family. The next big reshuffle is expected in four years’ time, when Liz Mohn will pick either Christoph or Brigitte to succeed her as family spokesperson. Neither is likely to rebel against her firm ideas of what the job entails.
“Bertelsmann has a unique corporate culture that extends to the aspect of social responsibility as well,” she wrote to me. “As the family spokesperson I consider it as one of my most important jobs to preserve and continually develop this culture.”
from: Telegraph
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