Titanic (magazine)

''Titanic'' is a German monthly satirical magazine based in Frankfurt. It has a circulation of approximately 100,000.

History

''Titanic'' was founded in 1979 by former contributors and editors of ''pardon'', a satirical monthly, which the group had left after conflicts with its publisher. (''Pardon'' ceased to exist three years later.) The founding writers and cartoonists of ''Titanic'' were mainly based in Frankfurt. They called themselves Neue Frankfurter Schule (New Frankfurt School), alluding to the Frankfurter Schule of the 1930s. The heading of ''Titanic's'' monthly reviews of humorous publications bears the portrait of philosopher Theodor W. Adorno wearing a fake goatee.

As of October 2022, the editor-in-chief is .

Chancellor Helmut Kohl was a favourite subject of the magazine, appearing on the front page more often than any other person. In the 1980s, ''Titanic'' coined his nickname "Birne", the German word for pear (accompanied with drawings of his head resembling a pear). One of ''Titanic's'' most widely known cover pages appeared in November 1989, following the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The East Germans' perceived obsession with bananas was spoofed by a ''Titanic'' cover depicting " Zonen-Gaby (17) im Glück (FRG): My first banana", where Gaby is shown holding a large peeled cucumber. "Zone" refers to the GDR's informal name "sowjetische Besatzungs''zone''" (soviet-occupied area). To make light of the prevailing public sentiment that strongly favoured German reunification, ''Titanic'' purported to oppose it. This culminated in the founding of the Titanic party ''Die PARTEI'' (''The Party''), whose sole agenda is to revoke reunification and to reconstruct the inner German border. The former editor-in-chief Martin Sonneborn is the party leader. In addition, ''Titanic'' changed its mission to "The ultimate division of Germany — our commitment".

''Titanic'' staff members have frequently engaged in activities that took aim at the media and entertainment. For example, then editor-in-chief, Bernd Fritz, made an incognito appearance at the game show '' Wetten, dass..?'', followed by his revelation of how easy it was for him to cheat on the show. In recent years, the magazine has repeatedly attracted attention, for example by attempting to bribe a FIFA delegate to bring the football world cup to Germany (see below).

Before the German federal election, 2005 ''Titanic'' was running a campaign against "das Merkel" ("das" being the neutral gender definite article) and was publicly searching for a female contender for chancellor with the slogan "Frau? Ja, aber schön" ("Woman? Yes, but beautiful").

''Titanic'' has generated a number of scandals, some of which have resulted in lawsuits against the magazine. Up to 2001, 40 plaintiffs had brought lawsuits against ''Titanic''. Politician Björn Engholm, for example, received 40,000 Deutsche Mark in compensation, and the magazine incurred 190,000 DM in legal fees.

The July 2012 issue of the magazine was banned by a state court in Hamburg due to its front cover being an image of Pope Benedict XVI soiling himself.

2006 FIFA World Cup bribery affair

In July 2000, Martin Sonneborn (then ''Titanic's'' editor-in-chief) sent hoax bribery faxes to a number of delegates of the FIFA World championship committee. In these letters, he offered the delegates gifts if they showed their support of the German bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Leading up to the vote, it had been widely expected that the tournament would take place in South Africa. However, New Zealand's representative, Charlie Dempsey, who had been instructed to vote for South Africa by the Oceania Football Confederation, abstained from voting at the last minute. His vote for South Africa would have brought the tally to 12:12, resulting in FIFA's President Sepp Blatter—who had supported South Africa's bid—having to break the tie. Dempsey was one of the eight members of the executive committee who had received Sonneborn's fax on Wednesday, the night before the vote. In his letter to Dempsey, Sonneborn promised him a cuckoo clock and Black Forest ham in exchange for Dempsey's vote for Germany:

Dempsey himself famously stated "This final fax broke my neck." He argued that the pressure from all sides had become too much for him.

According to reports by Spiegel magazine in 2015, there allegedly have been less-satirical bribery attempts involving billionaire Robert Louis-Dreyfuss and former German football player Franz Beckenbauer to assure a German victory in the bidding process (see main article).

In July 2000, the biggest German tabloid ''BILD-Zeitung'' urged its readers to phone ''Titanic'' and express their outrage at damaging Germany's reputation through bribery. ''Titanic'' recorded those phone calls and published an audio CD with a selection of the funniest of them, called "''BILD''-Leser beschimpfen ''Titanic''" ("''BILD''-readers insult ''Titanic''").

The German Football Association threatened Sonneborn with DM 600 million (approx €300 million) in damages, requiring him to swear never again to influence a FIFA decision through the use of a fax machine.

In November 2005, Sonneborn published a book about the affair, ''"Ich tat es für mein Land" — Wie TITANIC einmal die Fußball-WM 2006 nach Deutschland holte. Protokoll einer erfolgreichen Bestechung'' (''"I did it for my country" — How ''Titanic'' once brought the Football World Cup 2006 to Germany. Story of a successful bribery''), Bombus Verlag, .

In 2006, the year the World Cup took place in Germany, ''Titanic'' arranged an exhibition called " Wie ''Titanic'' einmal die Fußball-WM 2006 nach Deutschland holte" ("How ''Titanic'' once brought the Football World Cup 2006 to Germany") in the Historical Museum of Frankfurt am Main, which displayed the events surrounding ''Titanic''s bribery faxes.Wie TITANIC einmal die Fußball-WM 2006 nach Deutschland holte
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See also

* ''Academia Cațavencu'', a Romanian counterpart
* ''El Jueves'', a Spanish counterpart
* ''Frank'', a Canadian counterpart
* ''Le Canard enchaîné'', a French counterpart
* ''Molla Nasraddin'', an early 20th-century Azeri counterpart
* '' Moskovskaya Komsomolka'', a Russian counterpart
* ''Noseweek'', a South African counterpart
* '' Teacher's Diary''
* '' The Clinic'', a Chilean counterpart
* ''The Onion'', a US counterpart
* '' The Phoenix'', an Irish counterpart
* ''Private Eye'', a British counterpart
* ''Ulenspiegel'', a postwar East-German satirical magazine published from 1945–1950
* '' Eulenspiegel'', an East-German satirical magazine published since 1954

References

*BBC Sport
Call for World Cup revote
7 July 2000.
*BBC News World Edition
Legal threat over World Cup prank
8 July 2000.
* David Crossland

''Spiegel Online'', 17 January 2006

External links

Official website

Die PARTEI

{{Authority control

1979 establishments in West Germany
German-language magazines
Monthly magazines published in Germany
Satirical magazines published in Germany
Magazines established in 1979
Mass media in Frankfurt