There is always a tension between those who write a page and those who read it. Sometimes it's like in a relationship: you fall out and find each other again, become estranged or decide that you will remain loyal to each other despite occasional anger. How do the readers see us? We asked the faithful, the critical, those who were lost to us: what this sheet means or has meant to them, what they want, what bothers them. We addressed subscribers, people who write to us frequently and those who discussed with us, at a conference in Hamburg in 2018. Here are 13 answers, starting in the living room of a man who shares an important moment in his life with SPIEGEL.
On the day of the first issue of SPIEGEL, January 4, 1947, Jürgen Abraham from Essen-Kettwig was also born.
It was a Saturday.
Almost 75 years later he is sitting next to his wife in their small house at the table, outside is Heiligenhaus, near Kettwig, where they led their lives with two boys who are now big.
Abraham, a tall man, still athletic, was a math and physics teacher for 38 years and therefore warns that his considerations are rather "short and sweet".
He had written a letter to SPIEGEL that was almost emotional.
He "hangs" on SPIEGEL.
When on vacation they had to drive miles to buy it, once ten kilometers in Greece, then in Egypt, "it was difficult there too."
He says everything in the local dialect, "Schwierrrich".
"I can confirm," says his wife, she comes from France, a headband, page head, fine gold earrings, a rather calm woman.
There are fixed rituals in the Abraham house.
The procedure for SPIEGEL is as follows: Jürgen Abraham buys it on Saturdays, reads it until Thursday or Friday, passes it on to his son, who has to give it back because the father might want to read something, and that's the main thing because he needs the title page.
He then carefully tears it off and puts it in a pile he has upstairs in his room under the attic.
There are now four piles, and he has carried two down into the living room for the visit.
They are on the shelf in the wall unit, on the left the stereo system.
On top of that: "The 100,000 eyes of the KGB", July 2, 1984. He reaches in the middle of the pile: "The Great Bankruptcy - Economics in Communism", January 25, 1982. Reaches in again: "0% wage increase?" March 1981.
He sits back at the table.
"Maybe we'll put a sheet of glass on the table and put a few titles under it," he says.
His wife shakes her head in silence.
Abraham's parents had a construction business, it was the post-war period, they worked a lot.
At the age of 16, when the boy had problems in German, he got money to buy SPIEGEL.
In one of the first issues there was a report on the Second World War, and that helped him in high school in the group class. "I was able to shine," he says happily at the table.
He reads it from back to front, starts with the concave mirror, his son cuts out the best concave mirrors and collects them.
Has he never had a crisis with SPIEGEL?
"I am not prone to crises," says Abraham, as announced, in a nutshell.
Not even after Relotius?
"Let's put it this way: I found it accordingly not so good."
Never cheated, perhaps with "time"?
"Reads badly in bed because of the format."
»Focus«?
"Are the articles too short for me," he says.
He met his wife 54 years ago in the south of France, he was a student with a group on the Côte d'Azur, she was on vacation.
They have been married for 48 years.
"If I decide on something, I'll go through with it if possible," says Jürgen Abraham.
Such fidelity is rare; in most cases the bond between reader and reading material is rather volatile. In the minutes, texts, and interviews that follow, anger or approval often attaches itself to certain topics. One of them, of course in these times: Corona.
»In 2015, during the refugee crisis, I was amazed for the first time about the reporting. On the subject of climate change, I also missed articles that gave critics an adequate chance to speak. The break between the SPIEGEL editorial team and me occurred in the past two years, during the pandemic. In my opinion, legitimate criticism, including from experts, is suppressed. Too often there is a lack of distance from the work of the government. Of course, nobody in their right mind denies the existence of the virus and the disease, but reports about their dangers for the individual are almost hysterical. I myself have not been vaccinated, have been infected and got through the disease quite well without hospitalization. In the meantime I hardly read SPIEGEL and the articles on SPIEGEL.de.If you ask me what would have to happen in order for me to read SPIEGEL more often again, I cannot give you an answer. At the moment I don't think that the gap between you and me can be bridged. "
“As a single mother, I don't have much time to read in peace. I work in shifts. Depending on when I have to work, I sometimes manage to read a few pages in SPIEGEL in the morning, sometimes in the evening - instead of watching TV. I was born in Poland and have only been in Germany since 1999. I want to read myself. I'm actually interested in all current topics from Germany, but also from all over Europe, such as the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border. I want to be able to form an opinion.
German is not my mother tongue. Sometimes there are a lot of difficult words in the SPIEGEL texts. I then look up the meaning as I read. On the one hand, I see this as a challenge, on the other hand, it costs me too much time. So some things remain unread. It will take some time until I throw away the notebooks. When my friend is there, I'll pass it on to him or read something myself later. In between, however, I also quit my job. SPIEGEL isn't cheap, and if I can't read it, I always wonder whether it's worth spending that much money. I currently have a trial subscription.
Now, in the Corona period, I found many reports terribly interesting.
An article about the situation in the intensive care units even helped me with my vaccination decision: I had already been vaccinated, but I was still unsure about my children.
After reading about the situation in the intensive care units in hospitals, I made an appointment straight away.
That really touched me and convinced me.
Just today my younger son was vaccinated. "
The language of SPIEGEL - it was often criticized as arrogant in the past, but we believe it has changed in recent years. The anonymous authority no longer speaks, the language has become more relaxed. Not everyone thinks that's good.
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Morgenthaler, you write to us almost every day, sometimes several times a day, to point out grammatical and syntax errors.
Do you have the feeling that this will help?
Morgenthaler:
To be honest, no.
But I always hope that my emails will work in the long term.
When it comes to grammar, my hair often stands on end.
It's really bad in the headlines because the genitive is regularly confused with the dative.
This occurs mainly on SPIEGEL.de, but I also notice things again and again in the magazine.
SPIEGEL:
Which ones?
Morgenthaler:
Wind turbines are called wind turbines.
That's horrible.
What turns there isn't a wheel. Many years ago, SPIEGEL also spoke of windmills.
Yes, what is being ground there?
And everything that has to do with nuclear physics is called an atom.
That then leads to weird Anglicisms like Atomdeal.
What can that mean?
A deal between business atoms or what?
But I don't even react to something like that anymore.
SPIEGEL:
Why are you still loyal to SPIEGEL?
Morgenthaler:
There used to be this bon mot: What day are politicians afraid of?
SPIEGEL:
And?
Morgenthaler:
Before Monday, because SPIEGEL was published there.
Today is Saturday.
In the investigative field, SPIEGEL has done great things.
SPIEGEL:
What did you remember in particular?
Morgenthaler:
The SPIEGEL revelations about the Flick affair and the donation affair under Helmut Kohl.
But SPIEGEL has also made a few mistakes.
SPIEGEL:
Which ones?
Morgenthaler:
Unfortunately, SPIEGEL also made a difference with Christian Wulff.
In my opinion, however, Wulff only allowed himself minor items.
Or SPIEGEL once cheered Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and his wife with a beautiful cover picture - in tabloid style.
That struck me a lot.
SPIEGEL:
Why?
Morgenthaler:
Because even back then I thought he was an aerial act.
Was SPIEGEL earlier, when the student Hans Morgenthaler began to read it, "in case of doubt on the left," as Rudolf Augstein put it? Has it drifted to the left, as some believe? Or neither? Is it more likely that the readers have changed? The writers? Or the world?
»In my husband's family, SPIEGEL has been standard reading since SPIEGEL came into existence.
They were and are SPD voters, no matter what.
The notebook was always on the toilet.
In my family it was my father's desk, although it was very conservative, unlike my father-in-law.
I've read it since my university days, and with us it is first on the toilet, then it wanders around the house.
We have three children, and in the early eighties I was active in the Greens, that was my green phase. But my commitment to the environment is still there. We have around 20 Icelandic horses, pigs, chickens and a small farm, but politically I am now on the other side. I am missing the dissenting voice in SPIEGEL. I miss Jan Fleischhauer, for example. There is a wide variety of topics, but the issue has become more one-sided. That's why Claas Relotius was able to hold out for so long. Because he wrote what was wanted and fit into the picture. For example: In the case of the corona crisis under Trump, the absolute number of cases was shown, which of course was very high. The meaning behind it: Trump is risking the lives of Americans. Sometimes I also lack respect for what has been described. How can you writea main skipper is fat and has greasy hair? It doesn't have to be. Every now and then, the SPIEGEL step out of its one-sidedness, as recently with the essay by Jonathan Rauch on left cancel culture. That's what I appreciate the SPIEGEL for.
There are vaccine skeptics in my family and I know the hatred and agitation they have to endure.
They shouldn't be stigmatized, there are clever people among them.
That's why I'm angry with SPIEGEL.
And read it on. "
Lüder Gause, 69, lawyer, has resigned.
He no longer knows when exactly, shortly after the Relotius scandal.
The decision had already been made a few months earlier.
Gause sits in his office not far from Hamburg Central Station and remembers the time when Interior Senator Ronald Schill kept order in Hamburg, at the beginning of the noughties: "The drug dealers in front of our door were suddenly gone." At that time he still regularly had SPIEGEL bought that he did not agree to all of the texts, but he could rub himself against SPIEGEL, like his father once did.
“My father was an authorized signatory in a grain trade, he read SPIEGEL from the first issue. After his death, the SPIEGEL stacks from 1946 to 1998 were left in the attic. They stank. He had always smoked while reading, Ambassador cigarettes. I couldn't throw the notebook away. Until the fire in our house. Then I had to dispose of SPIEGEL ashes. It was hazardous waste. "
His father had impressed on him: If everyone is running in one direction, run in the other direction.
“The saying is still relevant today.
But SPIEGEL has changed.
He is no longer critical.
If the right-wing demonstrates, it means: march.
With the left it is said: scuffles, although they use violence.
DER SPIEGEL cracks down on Poland's judicial system without pointing out the deficiencies of the German one.
He's trying to educate me.
I want less attitude, more information. "
This unease reached its peak at a readers' conference in 2018.
An editor said to him that day in the SPIEGEL headquarters at the Ericusspitze: "Of course we mix reports with attitude." He was shocked and looked over at the editor-in-chief at the time.
He did not contradict.
Since 2019, Gause has only read SPIEGEL online and no longer pays any money for articles.
He also doesn't like the way SPIEGEL reports on Covid.
Bringing facts and attitudes together - is that allowed? Do you have to? SPIEGEL has always done it. This is what it says in the SPIEGEL Statute of 1949: The paper "does judge things, but the evaluation should be included in the description as far as possible." It is about the interpretation, the weighting of facts and events. But the ways to get there must be traceable. Openness to the other side, that also counts. And, like the next two encounters, can be enriching. The first takes place in Berlin, between Max Polonyi, who writes for SPIEGEL, and a man who reads it.
I met Steffen Stahnke one lunchtime in December in an overpriced café in Mitte.
I only knew Stahnke's name and email address, he was supposed to be in his early thirties, just like me.
I was expecting a relaxed conversation with someone of my age.
A man sat alone at a table in the middle, in an ironed shirt, in his early sixties, with his back stretched out, a portfolio lying on the table in front of him.
I sat in a corner and waited.
Stahnke didn't seem to be there yet.
Suddenly the man with the portfolio got up, came up to me and said, "Mr. Polonyi?" "Yes?" I replied.
"Aha," said the man.
"Stahnke, pleasant."
He opened the folder.
Inside was a pile of printed texts from the exercise book, many sentences marked in yellow.
I saw that some of the lyrics were mine.
I ordered a triple espresso.
Stahnke said that he was 62 and from Berlin-Tempelhof. He works in sales for an IT company and has spent a large part of his professional life on trains. He's been buying SPIEGEL since the 1970s. There is often no alternative to the magazine for him to find out more. I smiled and leaned back.
"But," said Stahnke, and pulled a text out of the folder. It was a story about the pop singer Heino, who had argued with the Tonhalle Düsseldorf over the word "German". I had visited Heino in Kitzbühel, and he had explained to me that he was German and therefore liked to advertise his "German recital" with the national colors. I then wrote that Heino had always liked to provoke, for example when he sang pieces that can also be found in a »SS songbook«. Stahnke gave me a fatherly look. He said, "Sorry, but what you're writing here is stupid."
He asked me how anyone could seriously criticize Heino for using the word "German" and the national colors. Then Stahnke began a monologue. He said that Merkel had done the country badly for 16 years and talked about powdery mildew. He praised Gerhard Schröder, who was sometimes offended, but who at least knew what he stood for. He said that SPIEGEL had slept for the past ten years, that there had been too little criticism of the financial and refugee crisis, the rescue of Greece and the key interest rate. That he noticed a political correctness in the magazine and that it annoys him. Stahnke found that most of the German media now have the same opinion, namely left and green, and that SPIEGEL is still the last magazine that you can read halfway.
I thought of the 30-year-old Stahnke, for whom I had prepared.
I imagined how we would have agreed over the espresso about the refugees and Europe and Heino.
It would have been easy.
A midday in powdery mildew.
Stahnke and I talked for almost an hour and a half.
We argued.
We went through the lyrics.
In the end we shook hands and promised to keep in touch.
He would be in touch if I wrote stupid stuff again.
I said: "Thank you, Herr Stahnke." And I mean it.
Most recently Karl-Heinz Groth, 82, was the headmaster in Wyk auf Föhr and Eckernförde, he retired in 2003 and now lives in Goosefeld in Schleswig-Holstein.
He read the first SPIEGEL in 1958, on a school trip a teacher put it in front of his door, accompanied by a warning: He needed it back tomorrow morning.
In his living room: a stack of ten, maybe twelve notebooks, he has marked articles that he still wants to read.
A pen and piece of paper are on a side table ready for notes.
Groth can look out the window into his garden, but when he reads SPIEGEL, he turns his armchair towards the wall.
He wants to concentrate.
He describes his relationship to the paper as follows: »Thanks to its exemplary documentation, SPIEGEL is an indispensable source of information for me and at the same time a trigger for my own stories.
A few years ago, for example, the report about a homeless man who almost died in a dumpster.
That touched me.
I made a story out of it, in Low German.
It was later published in several books.
I get a lot of ideas when I read SPIEGEL.
They are hidden somewhere in the notebook.
I always worry that I'm missing something.
What made me angry: how SPIEGEL dealt with the Relotius affair.
I thought the editorial staff put on their penitential robes too much.
I often send a letter to the editor; there have been well over 100 in the past 20 years.
I also sometimes write to the authors.
I have never met anyone who did not react.
I actually write the letters to the editor for myself.
Maybe for the editors too, not for other readers.
Sometimes I have a strange feeling when I write.
Then I put the letter aside, read it again the next day, change something or delete it entirely.
Criticism should always be edifying. "
SPIEGEL comes from West Germany, but it was also important for those in the GDR who could get it. He accompanied the reunification in 1989 closely and in detail - and still does not do justice to the East, that has been the accusation for years. How do readers in the East see this?
SPIEGEL:
You say that you are a loyal reader, but that every now and then you are no longer so loyal.
So do you sometimes cheat at the kiosk?
Däberitz:
I am - perhaps that is the better expression - a critical reader.
However, I am no longer looking for an alternative, I cannot find it.
Every Saturday I go to the kiosk, pick up the SPIEGEL and look at the table of contents.
And I'm always sad when I don't take the magazine with me.
SPIEGEL:
What does the decision depend on?
Däberitz:
I put the magazine back when the political issues fill more than half of an issue.
SPIEGEL:
SPIEGEL is a news magazine.
Däberitz:
I know, but portraits of politicians and interviews are often used for self-expression, regardless of who leads them or how you lead them.
I would like to see less of that in the paper.
SPIEGEL:
Let's say SPIEGEL does less about politics - what should be in the magazine instead?
More health topics?
Däberitz:
For God's sake, no.
I stopped reading the "star" because it is now too much about wellness and self-discovery.
What I miss is everyday life in East Germany.
When reports are made about the East, it is mostly about so-called Dark Germany.
The East should not be judged by those who are loud.
I always start reading from the back, read the concave mirror, then the letters to the editor.
I have such a quirk, I always count how many letters from the eastern federal states are with me.
SPIEGEL:
And?
Däberitz:
Sometimes there are fewer than those from Austria or Switzerland.
I ask myself, are there no SPIEGEL readers in the east, do they have no opinion, or do the topics not encourage writing enough?
Or your “Family Album” section, which I really like.
SPIEGEL:
What about that?
Däberitz:
East German life and the GDR times hardly appear there.
SPIEGEL:
The rubric lives largely from the letters we receive from readers.
Have you ever sent something in for us?
Däberitz:
No.
I understand your point.
“I read my first SPIEGEL in 1967, when I was 22, when I was still a student.
I met my brother at Lake Balaton in Hungary, he came from West Berlin, I came from East Berlin.
He came up in a VW bus and had 20 old SPIEGEL magazines with him.
I took them with me to the GDR and read them all.
Later on with the “Magazin”, for which I wrote, we always had an issue.
The editor-in-chief got it first, and then it went around.
I've always read with a certain awe.
I liked the rebellious, snotty, distant things.
That is no longer the case today, what a shame.
When I retired, we moved to Kuhhorst, 100 residents.
But a very lively village, we have an eco farm, a village pub and a cultural association in which I work.
For a while, I always got SPIEGEL two or three days late.
That annoyed me, but our mail carrier knows a trick.
My SPIEGEL subscription now has a different village address.
Now I get my SPIEGEL every Saturday.
When DER SPIEGEL turns to the East, things get obnoxious at times.
The fact that SPIEGEL is a West German medium can also be seen in the reporting on German-Russian relations.
The cold war is still in the magazine's clothes.
An Ostler knows his way around non-differentiated and one-sided portrayals. "
Daniel Perschke is 50 years old and a buyer for an automotive supplier.
He quit DER SPIEGEL, and not for the first time.
He lives in Brandenburg, 50 meters behind the Berlin sign.
When we ask him if we can take a picture of him, he laughs out loud and says: “Yeah, sure.
I was just at the hairdresser's.
I look good."
Daniel Perschke is in a good mood.
It almost always is.
Perschke has been reading SPIEGEL since the 1990s.
He's "Ossi," he says himself. So far, every time SPIEGEL's price increases, he has resigned.
So almost quit.
He has called.
Grumbled about the price increase.
Mumbled something about resignation.
And waited for an offer.
"That's my buying gene," he says.
“I've always been satisfied with SPIEGEL.
But I have to do that: negotiate a better offer. ”Always worked.
Sometimes there was a voucher, sometimes a small bonus, sometimes a delay, a special issue - there was always something in it, and Perschke was there again.
Until the last time.
So they just let him go.
"Then you just have to quit," they said.
He was really disappointed.
"I really missed SPIEGEL," he says.
He reads everything, every article.
He has different opinions and different insights on some topics, but he thinks that's a good thing: "I don't need to read again what I think myself," he says.
"The other thing is exciting."
If he should complain about anything: "The gendering," he says.
“One article said: Readers should be interviewed about this, if I remember correctly.
But then there was no question.
Maybe I missed it.
But I don't think so. ”Now the regulation is opaque.
"It seems to me that every editor does it differently." He is against the principle of gendering: "Of course, women are included." Another point of criticism: The East is not mentioned enough.
"And if so, then only as an object of contemplation, not as a subject." Can't you just as easily say: When we write, is the East always included?
He laughs.
SPIEGEL recently went soft.
Called him.
Made him an offer.
Now he's back.
Rudolf Augstein saw it that SPIEGEL's mission was not just reporting from the start - it was supposed to be more, an "assault gun of democracy." That sounds like post-war Germany. Is that still necessary today?
“In my opinion, SPIEGEL has become tamer over time.
I miss the confrontation with the parties, the confrontation with the federal order.
But I never thought of canceling my subscription.
I consider investigative journalism to be essential.
For me, thinking also means linking.
And you can only link what you have internalized.
Seen in this way, SPIEGEL also serves to develop personality and democratize society. "
“I often think back to Hong Kong, to the rain and the skyscrapers, to my family and the house I grew up in. I was born in Hong Kong. When I was a student, eleven or twelve years ago, I often strolled through the international book and press shops downtown. I read headings in foreign languages, saw pictures of places I've never been. I sometimes bought American magazines, Time Magazine and New Yorker, and every now and then I bought the Guardian from London. I bought SPIEGEL more and more often.
Der SPIEGEL kostete damals 100 Hongkong-Dollar, das waren etwa zehn Euro. Ich besuchte Deutschkurse und las das Magazin von vorn bis hinten. Natürlich verstand ich nicht alles, am Anfang fast gar nichts. Aber ich lernte die Sprache durchs Lesen. Mir gefiel das Seriöse am SPIEGEL. Er ist wie ›Time‹ aus Amerika, nur ernster, humorloser, viel politischer. Ich saß in meinem Hongkonger Zimmer und stellte mir vor, dass die Deutschen so wie der SPIEGEL sind.
Nach meinem Jura-Studium arbeitete ich in einer Wirtschaftskanzlei in Hongkong, aber der Wunsch, Deutschland kennenzulernen, verließ mich nie. Ich bewarb mich auf ein Stipendium und zog vor zwei Jahren nach Berlin. Und es stimmt schon ein wenig: So wie der SPIEGEL ist, sind auch die Deutschen.
Oft ernst, kompromisslos seriös, immer diskussionsfreudig. Gut, manchmal fehlt ihnen der Blick fürs Kulturelle, genau wie dem Magazin. Warum gibt es im Kulturteil so oft Texte über Rapper oder irgendwas auf Netflix und so wenig über Theater, Literatur oder Ausstellungen? Das können Sie mal ändern.
Ich bin keine Abonnentin, ich kaufe mir das Heft fast jede Woche am Kiosk. Als Corona kam und ich in Berlin kaum noch vor die Tür ging, schloss ich mich mit dem Magazin ein. Ich erinnere mich an einen großen Artikel über den Virologen Christian Drosten. Die ganze Welt war in Panik, aber dieser Mann schien mir so vernünftig. Ein Akademiker. Das Heft hat mir Hoffnung gegeben. Die Ausgabe habe ich immer noch.
I now work as a lawyer in Berlin.
I live in Charlottenburg with my husband and our two cats.
We are Asian immigrants, a minority, but we feel like citizens of equal value.
Sometimes when I think about Hong Kong lately I get sad.
There is no longer any discussion there, China forbids it.
What does SPIEGEL mean in Hong Kong?
I dont know.
I don't even know how long you can buy it there. "