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Reinhard Mohn

German businessman and philanthropist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reinhard Mohn

Reinhard Mohn (29 June 1921 – 3 October 2009) was a German billionaire businessman and philanthropist.[1] Under his leadership, Bertelsmann, once a medium-sized printing and publishing house, established in 1835, developed into a global media conglomerate.[2][3] In 1977, he founded the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung,[4] which is today one of the largest foundations in Germany, with worldwide reach.[5][6]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...
Reinhard Mohn
Mohn in 2008
Born29 June 1921
Gütersloh, Westphalia, Weimar Republic
Died3 October 2009 (2009-10-04) (aged 88)
Steinhagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
OccupationBusinessman
Spouses
Magdalene Raßfeld
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(m. 1948; div. 1982)​
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(m. 1982)​
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Mohn received numerous domestic and international awards, including the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Spain's Prince of Asturias Award.[7][8]

Life

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Background

Born in 1921 as the fifth child of Agnes Mohn (née Seippel) and Heinrich Mohn [de],[9] Reinhard represented the fifth generation of the shareholding families of Bertelsmann.[10] In 1887, his grandfather, Johannes Mohn [de], had taken over the management of the printing and publishing house from his father-in-law, Heinrich Bertelsmann [de], son of Carl Bertelsmann.[11][12]

Raised in a strict Protestant family,[1] Mohn earned his German baccalaureate (Abitur) at the Evangelisch Stiftische Gymnasium Gütersloh in 1939 and went on to complete his Reichsarbeitsdienst, the official labor service of the Third Reich.[13][14] Afterwards, he volunteered for military service with the Luftwaffe, originally with the aim of becoming a pilot.[14] After serving in an air-base command on the Western Front, Mohn was stationed with an anti-aircraft unit, advancing in rank from private to sergeant, and in 1942 achieving the rank of lieutenant.[15][16] From France, via Italy, his regiment was moved to Tunisia.[17] On 5 May 1943, Mohn became a U.S. prisoner of war,[14] and in mid-June, he was taken across the Atlantic to Camp Concordia, an internment center in Kansas for German prisoners of war.[18] According to Mohn's accounts, he was profoundly influenced by this experience;[19] as one example, he began reading American management literature for the first time.[20]

In January 1946, Reinhard Mohn returned to Gütersloh.[1] His oldest brother, Hans Heinrich Mohn, had died in 1939, and Sigbert Mohn, his second-oldest brother, was still a prisoner of war. Reinhard initially took an apprenticeship as a bookseller, and later joined his father's business.[21] His father, Heinrich Mohn, had come under the scrutiny of British occupation authorities because he was a supporting member of the SS, because he had donated to other Nazi organizations, and for other reasons.[22] In April 1947, Heinrich Mohn transferred his publishing license to his son Reinhard, who managed the publishing business from then on.[23][24]

Family

In 1948, Mohn married Magdalene Raßfeld, whom he knew from his school days.[25] The couple had three children: Johannes, Susanne and Christiane;[26] they divorced in 1982.[27][28] Later that year, Mohn married Elisabeth Scholz,[29] with whom he had had an affair since the 1950s and fathered three children in the 1960s.[30] After the wedding, Mohn adopted their three mutual children: Brigitte, Christoph and Andreas.[31]

Career

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Bertelsmann

In 1947, Mohn took over the management of the C. Bertelsmann publishing company, which had been largely destroyed by bombing raids during World War II.[32] In 1950, he established the Bertelsmann Lesering [de] book club, which formed the basis for the fast growth of the company in the decades that followed.[33][34] From the beginning, he closely involved employees, e.g. through the loan participation program introduced in 1951.[35] In 1969, he launched an employee profit-sharing model, viewed as exemplary throughout Germany.[36][37][38] As a businessman, Mohn was consistent in his efforts to grow the traditional publishing business into a media conglomerate: Thus, he entered music and film production, invested in the magazine business, and promoted international expansion.[39] A merger of Bertelsmann with the Axel Springer group planned in the years 1969/70 did not come to fruition.[40]

In 1971, Mohn transformed the family company into a joint stock corporation.[4][41] In this way, he created another structural prerequisite for Bertelsmann's rise to one of the world's leading media groups.[10] Mohn became chairman of the executive board, and in this position continued a corporate culture based on partnership,[42] the essential component of which involves dialogue between management and employees.[39] In 1976, he had a new corporate headquarters built, where Bertelsmann's home offices are still located today.[43] During this time, Mohn also began an entry into the U.S. publishing business, of vital importance to Bertelsmann.[44] The acquisition of Bantam Books (1977/1980) and Doubleday (1986) created the largest trade-book publishing group in the United States, at the time.[45][46]

In 1981, Mohn moved from the executive board to the supervisory board, which he chaired for another ten years,[47][48] still remaining involved in business operations.[49] At 70, he finally stepped down from his duties, and remained honorary chairman of the supervisory board.[50] From then on, he dedicated his efforts primarily to the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation.[9][1] In 1999, Mohn transferred his sole control over the voting rights of roughly 90% of Bertelsmann shares to the Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft,[51][52] a move designed to ensure the continuity of his company.[53][54][55]

Bertelsmann Stiftung

In 1977, Mohn established the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung,[56] initially endowed with capital of 100,000 Deutsche Mark.[57] Mohn supported the management-driven concept of an operating foundation, independently developing and managing projects.[58] He directed the Bertelsmann Stiftung to help fund the improvement of the Gütersloh City Library [de] and established the Carl Bertelsmann Prize (today the Reinhard Mohn Prize).[59][60]

In the 1980s, the Bertelsmann Stiftung became the key focus of Mohn's corporate citizenship activities.[61] In 1993, the majority of shareholdings in Bertelsmann was transferred to the foundation,[62] making the Bertelsmann Stiftung the largest shareholder in the group.[63] Capital shares and voting rights were strictly separated in the gift agreement, so that neither the foundation nor the group can exert any significant controlling influence over the other.[63]

Mohn massively increased the Bertelsmann Stiftung's budget in the 1990s.[64][65] In addition to projects in Germany, he supported projects in Spain, such as the Fundació Biblioteca d'Alcúdia Can Torró on Mallorca. In 1995, he founded the Fundación Bertelsmann [es], now based in Barcelona and Madrid, as an independent subsidiary foundation[66] that works to promote dual training to reduce youth unemployment.[67] Founded in 2008, the Bertelsmann Foundation North America, headquartered in Washington, D.C., deals with transatlantic cooperation, among other issues.[68]

In the early years, the founder was the sole Executive Board member of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. In 1979, a managing director was hired; from 1983, Mohn was supported by an Advisory Board, and in 1993, the Executive Board was also expanded.[69] After 1998, Mohn withdrew from executive management: Initially, he stepped down from his position as Chairman of the Executive Board, and a year later also withdrew as the Chairman of the Advisory Board.[70] As a result of several structural and personnel changes, Mohn held the interim chairmanship of both Bertelsmann Stiftung executive bodies again from the end of 2000 until mid-2001, when he was succeeded by Gunter Thielen as Chairman of the Executive Board.[71][72][73] In 2004, he permanently stepped down from the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, but as the founder, according to the statutes, he remained a member of the Board of Trustees until he died in 2009.[74]

Honors (selection)

Published works

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From the late 1980s on, Reinhard Mohn was also involved in journalistic activities as an essayist and nonfiction book author.[95] He wrote several books and magazine articles in which he dealt with topics concerning society and business.[96][97] In 1985, he published an essay on "Vanity in the Life of the Executive", in which he decried the archetype of a self-centered managerial class.[98] With his statements on this topic, Mohn's perspectives repeatedly drew controversy.[38][99] In 1986, with the worldwide publication of his book "Success through Partnership", he laid out the principles of corporate culture at Bertelsmann.[100][101] In "Humanity Wins", published in 2000, he strongly advocated an executive style in a spirit of partnership as a paradigm of a modern organizational structure.[102][103] "An Age of New Possibilities" from 2001, defined a regulatory framework, which at its core is defined by entrepreneurship.[104][105] In 2008, his last work was published as "A Global Lesson", in which Mohn provided an autobiographical account of the formative elements of his own life.[106][107][108] It was written with author Andrea Stoll [de], who also wrote the script to the film "Es müssen mehr Köpfe ans Denken kommen" (More minds need to start thinking) from Roland Suso Richter.[109] This film was the gift from the Bertelsmann Executive Board to Mohn on his 85th birthday in 2006.[110]

Miscellaneous

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In 1991, on the 70th birthday of Reinhard Mohn, the Bertelsmann Executive Board established a Reinhard Mohn Endowed Chair for Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and Social Evolution at the private University of Witten/Herdecke.[111]

In 2006, Mohn created the Reinhard Mohn Foundation [de], an eponymous foundation bearing his name, which has been run since 2010 by his son, Christoph Mohn.[112][113] After the senior Mohn's death, the foundation gained shareholdings in Bertelsmann, which Reinhard Mohn had held via an intermediary company.[114]

In 2010, the University of Witten/Herdecke honored Mohn by establishing an Institute for Corporate Management and Corporate Governance,[115][116] today known as the Reinhard Mohn Institute of Management.[117] It also houses the Reinhard Mohn Chair of Management, endowed in 1991, and two professorships, one for strategy and organization and one for research.[118]

In 2011, the Bertelsmann Stiftung awarded the first Reinhard Mohn Prize,[119] which upholds and advances the tradition of the Carl Bertelsmann Prize.[120] This award honors internationally renowned individuals for forward-looking solutions to societal and political challenges.[121]

Criticism

Mohn was criticized for how he dealt with the National Socialist past of Bertelsmann.[122][123] After questions arose in the 1990s as to the company's role in the Third Reich,[124] Bertelsmann, with the support of Mohn, established an independent historical commission, seeking to come to terms with its involvement in the Nazi era.[125] The commission presented its final report in 2002 and found that the decades-long account of its alleged involvement in a publishing company for the resistance could not be substantiated.[126][127] On the contrary, Bertelsmann was the largest book producer for the Wehrmacht.[128]

In 2010, author and journalist Thomas Schuler [de] criticized a "tax-saving interrelationship" between Bertelsmann and the foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung. The structures set up by Mohn were alleged to have saved his family billions in inheritance tax.[129] However, this tax would not have been owed, according to the prevailing legal view at that time.[130][131]

See also

References

External links

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