MASS MEDIA IN DIVIDED GERMANY 577
steer this process to their own ends. The conservative government that
came to power in Hungary, for example, gave preference to conservative
companies in the privatization process, which made it easier for Axel
Springer to buy up a number of media outlets in the country.^101
At the beginning of the 1990s, even the circulation fi gures for the most
popular GDR papers plummeted. Sales of daily newspapers had already
fallen in 1990 by a third, to under six million copies. While the high-
est circulation dailies, Neues Deutschland and Junge Welt, were able to
keep their heads above water due to their association with the PDS, the
number of copies sold sank rapidly. Not surprisingly, two-thirds of the
country’s newspapers also disappeared in the fi rst three years.^102 What
did come as a shock, however, was that larger publications such as Neue
Berliner Illustrierte and Für Dich were not able to stay afl oat. Other suc-
cessful popular publications, such as the TV magazine FF dabei, the en-
tertainment weekly Wochenpost, and the women’s magazine Sybille, also
caved in the mid-1990s, although the employees of the latter did make a
last-ditch eff ort to save it by taking it over.
The rapid collapse of these publications can be explained in part by
the hike in their sales prices, especially after the currency union took
place and the state subsidies fell away. Even the West German Commu-
nist newspaper Die Wahrheit, which was fi nanced with SED support,
closed down at the end of 1989, and the DKP daily unsere zeit from
Neuss only survived without subsidies from the SED in the form of a
small weekly paper. The East German press also had diffi culties adjust-
ing to the West German distribution system. But the main reason be-
hind the collapse of the East German press was the infl ux of long-desired
newspapers and magazines from the West into the East as of 1990. For
a short time around 1990, a colorful mix of old SED publications, newly
created press outlets of the East German opposition and West German
publishers, and established West German media circulated throughout
the former GDR. The high number of copies of West German publications
sold at fi rst expressed the great desire of East Germans to catch up with
the West, whether it be in terms of politics and entertainment or erotic
magazines such as Playboy because pornography had been prohibited in
the GDR.
The great variety of media off erings in the East peaked in early 1991
before it began to decrease dramatically. A rapid process of media con-
solidation occurred as the transformation of socialist society gained
momentum. Many of the media outlets were bought out by West Ger-
man publishing houses, but journalism and media use remained partic-
ularly East German. Four major West German publishers—Bauer, Burda,
Gruner + Jahr, and Springer—were especially successful in buying out