Hans Dichand
Encyclopedia
Hans Dichand was an Austrian journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, writer, and media businessman. He published the tabloid newspaper Kronen Zeitung
Kronen Zeitung
The Kronen Zeitung, commonly known as the Krone, is Austria's largest newspaper. According to a Österreichische Media-Analyse study, the average daily readership is 2,970,000 , which corresponds to 43,7% of all newspaper readers...

, Austria's largest newspaper in terms of readership, in which at the time of his death he held a 50% stake. As the publisher and majority owner of this newspaper Dichand became a highly significant political power factor during recent decades. Although this influence is direct only in Austria, it indirectly affects the European Union through the behavior of the Austrian government, which cannot afford to ignore the Kronen Zeitung.

Youth and service in World War II

Information on Hans Dichand's early life has to rely on information published in two authorized biographies (one by the U.S. correspondent of the Kronen Zeitung Hans Janitschek
Hans Janitschek
Hans Janitschek was an Austrian writer, a former Secretary General of the Socialist International, and the U.S...

 and another one by Austrian writer Lore Jarosch to which Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

 has written the preface), and his autobiography. If Jarosch states in her book that "Austria's most powerful man is a mystery," this is true to the extent that little or no independently verified information has been published on the youth of Hans Dichand, or on the early stages of his career.

According to the aforementioned sources Dichand's father Johann had been a leather cutter and later a master craftsman
Master craftsman
A master craftsman or master tradesman was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters were allowed to be members of the guild....

 who supplied semi-finished leatherware for the Humanic
Leder und Schuh
The Leder & Schuh Group, one of the largest shoe companies in Europe, employs over 3,500 people in more than 330 locations and gains total revenue of 475.9 million Euros. The corporation is not listed on the stock exchange...

 shoe factory in Graz. His mother Leopoldine worked as a society entertainer in the household of Count Carl Attems
Carl Attems
Carl August Graf Attems-Petzenstein was a famous Austrian zoologist. He published 138 scientific papers, most of them dealing with his specialist field, the myriapoda. He described about 1800 new species and subspecies from all over the world.-Life:Count Attems was born in 1868 in Graz...

, and it appears that young Hans Dichand has lived there for some time. However, it is uncertain how much access he had to aristocratic lifestyle and culture. In the biography written by Janitschek (who had been Secretary General of the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...

) Dichand describes himself as a "true working class child." (Janitschek p. 19.)

At some point during the economically difficult period which Austria experienced during the inter-war period, Johann Dichand's leathermaker business folded. The family was compelled to leave the Attems Villa, exchanging it for accommodation in a housing project. Hans found it difficult to adapt to his new social environment: "When he wanted to play with the other children he was ridiculed or beaten." (Janitschek p. 34) His father subsequently left the family.

During this time Hans Dichand became an avid reader, and began to aspire to journalism: "It was the writing, all the time only the writing about the experiences and observations of what I saw happening around me, that kindled my interest." (Janitschek p. 47) At the age of 14 years (implying the year 1935) he wrote to Austrian newspapers asking for advice how to become a journalist. The editor in chief
Editor in chief
An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...

 of the Kronen Zeitung recommended an apprenticeship as a typesetter
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...

. Dichand did so, while also attending evening courses for his high school education.

When World War II began 18-year old Hans Dichand volunteered for the Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

and was initially stationed at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, for service in an anti-aircraft detachment tasked with protecting the naval supply routes for the North African theatre. As Dichand has stated in 2007 the hastily converted armed merchantman Leverkusen on which he served was attacked and sunk on May 1, 1941 by the British submarine Upholder
HMS Upholder (P37)
HMS Upholder was a Royal Navy U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness. She was laid down on 30 October 1939, launched on 8 July 1940 by Mrs. Doris Thompson, wife of a director of the builders. The submarine was commissioned on 31 October 1940...

. Dichand fractured a leg when he jumped ship, narrowly avoided being sucked down with the sinking hull, was rescued by an Italian destroyer, and brought to a navy hospital near Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...

. Nothing is known about his further military record until 1943, when he served as a gunner on "the Italian warship Orsa." (This might refer not to an individual ship, but merely to an Orsa class torpedo boat
Orsa class torpedo boat
The Orsa class were a group of large torpedo boats or destroyer escorts built for the Italian Navy in the late 1930s. They were an enlarged version of the , with more endurance and a greater depth charge load but less powerful machinery and a lighter gun armament. The surviving pair were rebuilt as...

.) When Italy changed sides he managed to be transferred to an Axis-run navy academy in Liepāja
Liepaja
Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...

. When the Red Army approached the Baltic the academy was evacuated, and Dichand eventually became a British prisoner of war.

Hans Dichand has always denied having been a member of the Nazi Party. When in 2006 the 85 year-old powerful newspaper publisher learned during an interview that the German Wikipedia
German Wikipedia
The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and mostly publicly editable online encyclopedia.Founded in March 2001, it is the second-oldest and, with over articles, the second-largest edition of Wikipedia, behind the English Wikipedia...

 had assigned his biography article to the category "NSDAP member" he angrily exclaimed, "I never even came close to the NSDAP! I even managed to avoid compulsory membership in the Hitlerjugend
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...

!"

Journalist in post-war Austria

Again according to the self-written or approved biographies, Dichand was released from British captivity in October 1945, returned to Graz in November, and became a journalist at the British news service for Allied-occupied Austria where he was tasked with recording content broadcast by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 radio service and with processing it for publication in the Neue Steirischen Zeitung.

Already in 1946, at an age of only 25 years, Dichand became editor in chief of the Judenburg
Judenburg
- People :* Renate Götschl* Egon Haar * Herbert Hufnagl, journalist * Gernot Jurtin* Christian Muthspiel, jazz musician, painter* Kurt Muthspiel, composer * Wolfgang Muthspiel* Christian Pfannberger* Walter Pfrimer* Georg Pichler...

 newspaper Murtaler Zeitung which at that time was jointly owned by the conservative, socialist, and communist parties of Austria. In 1949 he secured himself an equivalent position at the newly founded independent Kleine Zeitung
Kleine Zeitung
Kleine Zeitung is an Austrian newspaper based in Graz, Styria. It was founded in 1904 by the Katholischen Pressverein. The first issue was published on Tuesday, November 22, 1904. It was designed from the start as a paper to be read by the masses, covering general news topics and being very cheap...

 which was facing a boycot by the party-controlled Austrian state news agency. Building on his experience in British service, Dichand was able to solve that problem by accessing international newswires. During the following five years he developed the Kleine Zeitung into Austria's largest regional daily newspaper.

In 1954 Dichand became editor in chief of the Wiener Kurier, the predecessor of today's Kurier
Kurier
The Kurier is an Austrian newspaper based in Vienna....

. However, Dichand soon faced increasing opposition from his staff because he prevented extensive reporting on the many legal proceedings against war criminals that were ongoing at this time. "He instinctively felt that a paper with a more conciliatory stance towards former Nazi Party members would be met with sympathy, and he aligned his paper's attitude with that of the populace." (Janitschek p. 103). Dichand managed to control this internal opposition but left in 1958 when differences of opinion developed with the newspaper's owner over the sale of the recently acquired newspaper Bildtelegraph.

Founding the Neue Kronen Zeitung

When Dichand walked away from the Wiener Kurier in October 1958 six leading journalists (which included the author and theatre critic Hans Weigel
Hans Weigel
Julius Hans Weigel was an Austrian Jewish writer and a theater critic . He lived in Vienna, except during the period between 1938 and 1945, when he lived in exile in Switzerland. He was a lifetime companion of the Austrian actress Elfriede Ott.- Biography :During the time before the Anschluss of...

) left with him. These journalists formed the initial core team for a new newspaper, conceived by Dichand and his partner Friedrich Dragon, with the intent of reviving the time-honored name Kronen-Zeitung. Franz Olah
Franz Olah
Franz Olah was an Austrian politician who served as the country's Interior Minister from 1963 until 1964 as a member of the Social Democratic Party ....

, then president of the powerful Austrian Trade Union Federation
Austrian Trade Union Federation
-External links:*...

, provided a contact with the businessman Kurt Falk and also facilitated substantial funding for the project, from sources that ultimately remained untraced. The rise of the Neue Kronen Zeitung to an unprecedented degree of readership coverage, especially since the mid-1960s and especially in the densely populated Northeast of Austria, became inextricably entwined with the person of Hans Dichand and his personal leadership.

Media power, attitudes, and criticism

The newspaper which Dichand created and shaped allowed him to attain a position of public opinion-moving power which most politicians feel they could oppose only at the peril of their careers. In June 2009 a commentary in the Wiener Zeitung
Wiener Zeitung
Wiener Zeitung is an Austrian newspaper. It is one of the most famous newspapers in Europe and one of the oldest, still published newspapers in the world. It is the official publication used by the Government of the Republic of Austria for its formal announcements. It was founded in 1703 under the...

 summarized: "In this country he exercises power comparable only to that of the Roman imperators; merely by lifting or lowering his thumb he can point a two-digit percentage of the electorate this way or that." Helmut Kukacka, a former Secretary of State and media contact of the conservative Austrian People's Party
Austrian People's Party
The Austrian People's Party is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Austria. A successor to the Christian Social Party of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is similar to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in terms of ideology...

, was cited by the major German newspaper Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...

 as saying with (careful but unusually direct) reference to Dichand, "One has his fears. One makes his arrangements." In the commentary part of the same article Die Zeit was more outspoken: "Where Dichand's wrath falls, destruction reigns."

However, Dichand (who wrote using the pseudonym Cato, in apparent reference to the Roman statesmen Cato the Elder
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...

 and/or Cato the Younger
Cato the Younger
Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...

) has always presented himself as being
"...not interested in personal power at all. What am I supposed to do with power? I'd rather stay at home and fuss with my dog. What I am after, and what I defend, is success; and for me success lies in convincing readers, in amplifying the trends that arise in the populace. Beyond that, I shall be completely content if I can master myself." (Janitschek p. 20)
When asked four years later if he really considered himself as having set foot only "in the anteroom of power" (an allusion to the title of Dichand's autobiography), he replied in a very similar fashion:
"I simply wouldn't know what to do with personal power; I'd rather pat my dog at home. But exerting power on behalf of our readers is a different matter entirely. Its not as if we would parrot them; we want to be a step ahead of them, to show them perspectives which they might not have considered."
In 2003 the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung is a major German language Swiss daily newspaper based in Zurich.One of the oldest newspapers still published, it originally appeared as Zürcher Zeitung, edited by Salomon Gessner, from January 12, 1780, and was renamed to Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1821...

 cited him as saying that "we perceive ourselves as a political corrective in a time of mediocre politics", and did not fail to point out that "using the 'we' in this fashion indicates the majestic plural which this phenomenon of an Austrian publisher is fond of."

The support which the Kronen Zeitung has always given to controversial politicians such as Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria, from 1986 to 1992...

, Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria , a breakaway party from the FPÖ.Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments...

 and Barbara Rosenkranz
Barbara Rosenkranz
Barbara Rosenkranz is an Austrian politician for the Freedom Party of Austria , currently serving as the Minister of Building Law and Animal Protection of the State of Lower Austria...

, as well as to various populist calls for increased surveillance and strict punishment, has made Hans Dichand a habitual and unfailing target of criticism by libertarians, leftists, and privacy advocates. In 2007 he was named a recipient of one of the Austrian Big Brother Awards
Big Brother Awards
The Big Brother Awards recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten personal privacy".They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.-Countries:...

, for the work of his "life as a manipulator of the republic".

Relevance for the European Union

The Kronen Zeitung had supported the Austrian government's successful referendum campaign for EU accession in 1994, but after that time Dichand (and his newspaper) turned highly critical of the European Union and its expansion, frequently citing the most bizarre myths and making unverifiable allegations. Although the Kronen Zeitung is hardly known beyond Austria's borders its influence on the country's politics has already affected Austria's representation in the European parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

 by Dichand's massive support for the extremely EU-critical Hans-Peter Martin's List
Hans-Peter Martin's List
The Hans-Peter Martin's List – For genuine control in Brussels is an Austrian anti-corruption and pro-transparency political party. It currently has 3 seats in the European Parliament....

, and in 2008 the leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Austria
Social Democratic Party of Austria
The Social Democratic Party of Austria is one of the oldest political parties in Austria. The SPÖ is one of the two major parties in Austria, and has ties to trade unions and the Austrian Chamber of Labour. The SPÖ is among the few mainstream European social-democratic parties that have preserved...

 wrote an open letter to Dichand in which they committed themselves to making Austrian consent to "all important EU matters that impact Austria" contingent on a public referendum in Austria, specifically naming changes in the Treaties of the European Union
Treaties of the European Union
The Treaties of the European Union are a set of international treaties between the European Union member states which sets out the EU's constitutional basis. They establish the various EU institutions together with their remit, procedures and objectives...

 and the accession of Turkey to the European Union
Accession of Turkey to the European Union
Turkey's application to accede to the European Union was made on 14 April 1987. Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union and its predecessors since 1963...

 as examples.

Personal life

Dichand was briefly hospitalized after suffering a fall in August 2008 but soon returned to his personal office from where he directed the Kronen Zeitung as its chief executive and 50-percent owner, although in 2003 he installed his youngest son Christoph as his successor in the role of editor in chief.

Dichand, who was married, had another son (Michael) and a daughter, Johanna. He has dismissed as baseless a rumor that had claimed the head of the socialist party and chancellor of Austria, Werner Faymann
Werner Faymann
Werner Faymann is Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the Social Democratic Party SPÖ .-Background and earlier career:Born in Vienna, Austria, he studied law at the University of Vienna for two years but did not graduate....

to be an extramarital son.

Books by Hans Dichand

  • Dichand H. Kronen Zeitung : die Geschichte eines Erfolges. Orac Verlag, Vienna 1977
  • Dichand H. Begegnung mit Paris. Wien 1982; ISBN 3-217-01229-1
  • Dichand H. Die Künstler der klassischen Moderne in Österreich. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin and Vienna 1989; ISBN 3-549-05311-8
  • Dichand H. Im Vorhof der Macht. Iberia & Molden Verlag, Vienna 1996; ISBN 3-900436-36-3

External links

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