Markus Lanz (ZDF): Toxic corporate culture and perpetrator-victim reversal in the Reichelt case

Markus Lanz (ZDF) is about the fall of former Bild boss Julian Reichelt.

Hamburg – After Julian Reichelt, a former Bild employee, had to leave his post, Markus Lanz (ZDF) asked about the specific background. As early as March, Der Spiegel reported that the powerful editor-in-chief is said to have taken advantage of young colleagues. Nevertheless, for a long time the management of Bild saw no reason to relieve him of his duties.

The incidents were researched for months within “Ippen Investigativ” under Daniel Drepper, Juliane Löffler and other team members and even the New York Times was working on this topic at the same time, because since 2020 the majority of Axel Springer Verlag has been owned by the investment company KKR & Co Inc . with headquarters in New York. A globally sensitive topic in the #MeToo spectrum: abuse of power in the workplace.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): Julian Reichelt (picture) has taken advantage of his position

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer Verlag, almost inevitably explains in a video on YouTube that it is not about cases of sexism, sexual assault or sexual abuse, but that sex took place by mutual consent. Associated with clear professional advantages and disadvantages, Melanie Amann (member of the chief editor of Der Spiegel) is outraged. Julian Reichelt has clearly used his position to enter into affairs with young women, some of whom were only employed on a temporary basis and still wanted and had to prove themselves.

Daniel Drepper continues: How should a young woman react when the editor-in-chief, who determines everything, starts to flirt with her? Melanie Amann describes an exemplary situation as he inconspicuously walks past his desk. He says that was good what she said in the conference today. Little by little, a mentor relationship builds up, then at some point there is a meal together, there is also private talk and so it goes on and on and led to an affair for some, which might lead to a promotion, or the women were afterwards just dropped again. What remains is a feeling that you have to let everything go with you just so that the boss isn’t upset.

In the industry, as in many others, it is still common to select young female professionals based on a “fuckability” rating, explains Caroline Rosales (author, journalist and editor at Welt online). She also worked for Axel Springer-Verlag for four years and had good reason to leave the Frankfurt Book Fair early and sit in the car for five hours, heavily pregnant, in order to take part in this discussion: At the time, she had very serious intentions as a journalist when she applied there.

But no one has ever looked at her application portfolio: she was clearly hired for her looks. She constantly got lewd text messages and emails from married colleagues and superiors and if she had complained or even left, then she would have been stamped with: Well, the texts from her weren’t good anyway.

At Markus Lanz (ZDF): Sexism is such a topic that people like to roll their eyes

Just last week, Hajo Schumacher (journalist, author and former editor-in-chief of lifestyle magazine Max) was sitting with an old colleague he had hired at the time, Hatice Akyün, who is the Theodor Wolff Prize winner in 2021, when she said he was was a pretty asshole back then, too. At first he thought it was meant funny, but she meant it quite seriously and gave him conferences as an example when she said something and the overwhelming number of men rolled their eyes and came up with hormone comments.

This condescension and the feeling of not being on an equal footing was a part of media culture and it wasn’t clear to him at the time either. Sexism is such a topic that people like to roll their eyes, confirms Melanie Amann. You just made a stupid saying and now the works council and the women’s representative are about to come. Are they not allowed to do anything anymore? It would be helpful if not only the women always had to complain, but there was also greater awareness among the men to observe the behavior and to make each other aware of when something is wrong instead of being silent.

Video message from Matthias Döpfner (picture) at Markus Lanz (ZDF)

Mathias Döpfner also plays with antiquated thinking in the video message: It was never actually about violence or harassment, they decided that together. But it’s not that simple, because it implies an eye level that is not there: Caroline Rosales sees a toxic corporate culture in it. Mathias Döpfner explains further that after the first examination in March, Julian Reichelt made serious mistakes, but not unforgivable ones, so that at that point he should get a second chance to learn from his mistakes. He also explains that former employees of Bild had only organized the publications in order to harm Julian Reichelt. A mystified perpetrator-victim reversal? Words are not the only thing missing from Caroline Rosales.

Daniel Depper objectively states that it is completely irrelevant who passed on what information and for what interest, but rather the facts of the deeds per se and these were known to Axel Springer Verlag in March. The group should have drawn the necessary conclusions much earlier, because at this point in time they could have said that there was an abuse of power in the media group and that it had to end. To portray all of this as a kind of conspiracy is absurd when you know how many statements, documents and references there are not just from those affected. Michael Müller, the ruling mayor of Berlin (SPD), is also in constant contact with Axel Springer Verlag.

This statement video also has an oppressive effect on him, because there is obviously not even the approach of being insightful and really wanting to smash the power structures that led to the abuse of power, on the contrary: For him it seems as if they want to build a legend around the figure of Julian Reichelt, in the manner of representation that others only want something bad for him. It amazes him that obviously quite a lot of people already knew about the conditions for a long time and it still went on for a long time.

How can it be that these are generally common structures? The system is also available in other areas, explains Hajo Schumacher. The all-powerful director in the field of acting. In women’s football, especially in the US, as well as in swimming. And these are just a few of the industries that are in the spotlight. He also knows stories from temporary employment, where decisions are made about who gets a good shift and who gets a bad shift: there, too, there are positions of power that are exploited.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): Flatter hierarchies and a different working atmosphere as the goal

At Axel Springer Verlag, Caroline Rosales sees the problems mainly in the steep hierarchies of a very authoritarian leadership, which favors the abuse of power. The goal for the future should be flatter hierarchies and a different working atmosphere so that such unpleasant situations cannot arise in the first place. And so that the question from the women’s point of view of how to get out of such structures does not have to be asked at all, Hajo Schumacher agrees. Every woman should report something like this as misconduct and make it public so that everyone can see: there are not many isolated cases, it is a whole structure that needs to be changed. (Tina Waldeck)