terminology Springer Press

The bane of leftist Germans, the Springer newspapers were outrageously conservative. Owned by Lord Axel Springer, the Springer Press controlled almost half of the newspaper circulation in West Germany.

Springer was an avowed anti-communist. During a time when others corporations were leaving West Berlin in droves (fearful of the tenuous political situation that barely kept the city out of East German hands), Axel Springer chose to put the headquarters for his publishing empire in Berlin. Springer built a 20-story monstrosity mere yards away from the Berlin Wall (and a block or so away from Checkpoint Charlie), and put a huge reader-board on the side facing East Berlin. The board would flash the news of the free world to the “enslaved Germans” on the other side of the wall. The sheer size of the building was intended as a constant reminder to East Germans of the superiority of the Capitalist system.

The Baader-Meinhof Gang bombed the Springer building in Hamburg in May of 1970, injuring 17 workers.