Visit at the Süddeutscher Verlag Druckhaus in Munich
 

Posted on Apr 01, 2017
 
RCMI members took an excursion to the publishing house Süddeutscher Verlag in Munich on Monday, March 27th. After a short welcome by President Thomas Eilfort, Managing Director Josef Schießl made us familiar with some facts of the printing facility.  50.000 tons of paper and 1 million printing plates are processed every year. A turnover of € 44 million in a stagnating market is generated.
 
 
Friend Christoph Schwingenstein gave a very personal brief on the history of the publishing house in general. His grandfather was one of the three founders of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), which got the first licence for a German language newspaper in the American sector in October 1945. Born 7 months before the newspaper started, Christoph is still connected to it as a non-executive member of the board.
 
Friend Schwingenstein and President Thomas Eilfort handed over the RCMI flag to Mr. Schießl.
 
 
Mr. Martin Lorenz explained the production process and a bit of the history. The printing plant of the publishing house Süddeutscher Verlag in Munich Steinhausen was built during the change from letter press to offset printing in 1984. Previously the Süddeutsche Zeitung was printed in the centre of the city, but due to the increasing space requirement of the new printing machines and the important fact that the environmental pollution caused by the truck traffic was no longer acceptable, the site had to be relocated to the outskirts of Munich. The architects (von Seidlein, Fischer, Winkler, Effinger) were awarded many prizes for their efforts, among them being the German architectural prize in 1985.
 
 
Mr. Stengl gave a lively talk about the work of journalists, the structure of the workday at SZ with its various deadlines, and the target group the newspaper has: educated and wealthy people all over Germany, with a high interest in data privacy and high quality journalism.
 
With a short movie we were introduced to further aspects of the production process as well as the work of the journalists at home and abroad.  SZ is one of the newspapers which is still investing in a high profile network of own correspondents worldwide.
 
A guided tour through the production facilities was the highlight of the evening.