War of the Illustrateds

"The trouble with this business is that everybody runs after the same material." With that complaint, Henri Nannen, editor of the German magazine Der Stern, summed up the life story of the most widely circulated of all German publications: the illustrated weeklies. The illustrateds have been snapping and snarling at one another ever since they appeared on newsstands after World War II. They fake stories, trick each other out of pictures, keep plenty of lawyers busy enjoining a competitor's publication at the slightest excuse. In their early days, they tried to outdo each other with atrocity stories about Hitler and the war. Later they switched to a kind of striptease in which each week's winner was the magazine offering the most revealing picture of a peeled fraulein. More recently they have begun to bid top prices for memoirs of political figures and their hangers-on. "It's a wild, crazy auction," says Quick's Editor Karl-Heinz Hagen. "Somebody calls us to find out what his story is worth. Then he calls the opposition and tells him what we offer. No, it's not an auction. It's roulette." Fake Photos. The game has produced many losers. From a peak of twelve illustrateds in 1955, the number has dwindled to five, and one of these is shaky. Revue sold out to Quick last month after losing 26.5% of its advertising in the first half of 1965. Last March a badly slipping Revue published what purported to be a sensational interview with Nikita Khrushchev in retirement, but the interview was judged to be a phony. Last June, upon learning that Der Stern was about to run some striking photos of a developing embryo taken by Swedish Photographer Lennart Nilsson (that also ran in LIFE), Revue faked an embryo sequence of its own. It drew a blast from Stern: "They borrowed textbook photos, and an institute lent them a fetus preserved in alcohol, and--the pen hesitates to put it down--the whole thing was photographed in a water-filled prophylactic." Lamented Revue's retiring Publisher Helmut Kindler: "This German illustrated business is murder ous. They tell me that only the Texas oil business is comparable." Worrisome Rumors. Revue's sale only adds to the turmoil of the illustrateds. None of the competition is particularly worried by Quick's promises to continue to publish Revue, but there is considerable concern about a third party to the deal. Axel Springer, Germany's biggest press king, bought Revue's smaller companion magazine Bravo, as well as Kindler's elaborate printing plant near Munich. Though Springer, who now publishes five big dailies, denies he has any intention of entering the illustrated magazine field, rumors abound that he has formed a secret holding company with Quick, and that he has a controlling share in the company. "It's about time to blow the whistle on Springer's megalomania," says one fretful illustrated publisher with typical illustrated hyperbole. "This is a danger to democracy."

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