Reinhard Mohn (29 June 1921 – 3 October 2009) was a German billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Under his leadership, Bertelsmann, once a medium-sized printing and publishing house, established in 1835, developed into a global media conglomerate. In 1977, he founded the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung, which is today one of the largest foundations in Germany, with worldwide reach.
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.
Life
Background
Born in 1921 as the fifth child of Agnes Mohn (née Seippel) and , Reinhard represented the fifth generation of the shareholding families of Bertelsmann. In 1887, his grandfather, , had taken over the management of the printing and publishing house from his father-in-law, , son of Carl Bertelsmann.
Raised in a strict Protestant family, 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. Afterwards, he volunteered for military service with the Luftwaffe, originally with the aim of becoming a pilot. 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. From France, via Italy, his regiment was moved to Tunisia. On 5 May 1943, Mohn became a U.S. prisoner of war, and in mid-June, he was taken to the United States, to Camp Concordia, an internment center in Kansas for German prisoners of war. According to Mohn's accounts, he was profoundly influenced by this experience; as one example, he began reading American management literature for the first time.
In January 1946, Reinhard Mohn returned to Gütersloh. 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. 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. In April 1947, Heinrich Mohn transferred his publishing license to his son Reinhard, who managed the publishing business from then on.
Family
In 1948, Mohn married Magdalene Raßfeld, whom he knew from his school days. The couple had three children: Johannes, Susanne and Christiane; they divorced in 1982. Later that year, Mohn married Elisabeth Scholz, with whom he had had an affair since the 1950s and fathered three children in the 1960s. After the wedding, Mohn adopted their three mutual children: Brigitte, Christoph and Andreas.
Career
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. In 1950, he established the book club, which formed the basis for the fast growth of the company in the decades that followed. From the beginning, he closely involved employees, e.g. through the loan participation program introduced in 1951. In 1969, he launched an employee profit-sharing model, viewed as exemplary throughout Germany. 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. A merger of Bertelsmann with the Axel Springer group planned in the years 1969/70 did not come to fruition.
In 1971, Mohn transformed the family company into a joint stock corporation. In this way, he created another structural prerequisite for Bertelsmann's rise to one of the world's leading media groups. Mohn became chairman of the executive board, and in this position continued a corporate culture based on partnership, the essential component of which involves dialogue between management and employees. In 1976, he had a new corporate headquarters built, where Bertelsmann's home offices are still located today. During this time, Mohn also began an entry into the U.S. publishing business, of vital importance to Bertelsmann. The acquisition of Bantam Books (1977/1980) and Doubleday (1986) created the largest trade-book publishing group in the United States, at the time.