Why W. Georg Olms has been reading the FAZ for 75 years

Der Weg zum vielleicht treuesten Leser der F.A.Z. führt nach Hildesheim. Kurz nach einer großen Kreuzung am Rande der Innenstadt zweigt eine kleine Straße ab, die leicht bergauf entlang der einstigen Wallanlagen verläuft. Nach rund 100 Metern prangt über dem Eingang eines roten Gebäudes aus den Siebzigerjahren in großen Buchstaben der Name Olms.

W. Georg Olms, 97 Jahre alt, wartet bereits gemeinsam mit seinem Sohn Dietrich Olms an der Tür, durch deren Scheiben Bücher, Bücher und nochmals Bücher zu sehen sind. Der Olms-Verlag verlegt zwar auch einige schmale Bücher, der Schwerpunkt des Programms liegt aber auf den schweren Büchern, was das Gewicht und was den Inhalt angeht.

Die „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ lese er seit ihrer Gründung vor 75 Jahren im Jahr 1949, erzählt Olms. Den Leitartikel der ersten Ausgabe vom 1. November mit seiner Formulierung „Für die Denkfaulen möchten wir nicht schreiben“ hatte Olms damals noch nicht in den Händen gehalten. Olms war kein Leser der ersten Stunde, sondern einer der zweiten Stunde.

Er erinnert sich, dass er damals zwei Freunde gehabt habe, einen Banker und einen später ranghohen Beamten, „die beide nicht dumm waren“ und ihm das neue Blatt in der noch jungen Zeitungslandschaft empfohlen hätten. Der Literatur­teil schwanke in seiner Qualität zwar noch ein bisschen, aber die Wirtschaftsberichterstattung sei gleich von Beginn an das Beste, was man finden könne, hätten die Freunde erzählt. Und der im Gründungsleitartikel beschriebene Ansatz, „nicht an der Oberfläche der Dinge stehen zu bleiben, sondern ihre geistigen Hintergründe aufzusuchen“, passte exakt zu den damaligen Bedürfnissen von W. Georg Olms. Denn er besaß weder einen Studienabschluss noch ein Abitur.

Olms had to acquire all of his higher education himself. During the war, as an anti-aircraft helper, he experienced the destruction of Hanover and his hometown of Hildesheim, which had previously been a magnificent half-timbered town and therefore burned down even more completely than other cities during the bombing campaign. The half-timbered house with his father’s bookstore was also destroyed, as was the neighboring Biedermeier building in which W. Georg Olms grew up. It was “fantastic” there, he says. “We had a kingdom of heaven in the garden.”

After the end of the war, his father, who came from a family of booksellers in Hildesheim, founded his own bookstore in a former laundry room. Because of the father’s faltering health, who also died quite young, the son had to lend a hand in the post-war years and forego school. Instead, he had a reading group with friends that covered literature, music theory, art history and philosophy. Olms was responsible for philosophy. He was particularly influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. “My ambition was to learn all of this.” Because W. Georg Olms had no intention of remaining a bookseller. “That wasn’t enough for me: I wanted to become a publisher.”

At that time, Olms bought up larger library collections in order to also offer antiquarian books. And he soon noticed that the interest of scientists and universities exceeded the available antiquarian copies and that reprinting works could make sense. This became Olms-Verlag’s business model. The young publisher, an extremely busy networker, made contacts with scholars from the humanities and with them compiled lists of books that they were interested in reprinting.

Olms says he even corresponded with Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. At the time, he was pursuing the idea of ​​large companies like Volkswagen giving their employees a book every month to improve their education. The project was well received by the authors. Even back then, the Federal Republic’s bureaucracy stood in the way of the emergence of an educational republic – keyword: monetary advantage.

But that didn’t detract from the Olms family’s personal economic miracle. The commercial success of his reprints enabled W. Georg Olms to pursue an expensive hobby: thoroughbred Arabian horses. Olms reports that there were around 40 horses at his stud farm in Hesse, and a total of around 100,000 Asil Arabians have now been bred by him. The publisher no longer dares to ride the animals. In a figurative sense, however, the horses continue to serve him as a vehicle: Olms has excellent relationships in the Arab world, especially with the ruling families there. The noble horses were a “catalyst” for this.

One of the numerous book projects he initiated in Arabia included, for example, a directory of all the mango varieties in the world. The encyclopedia emerged from his long-standing contacts with Sultan Kabus bin Said, who ruled Oman for almost 50 years until his death in 2020. The eleven-volume work (including index) is available in four languages ​​and two versions, so it comprises a total of 88 volumes. Olms hands over the more elegant version, which is bound in Indian buffalo calfskin.

The publisher has such elaborate copies made in Italy, where the necessary craftsmanship is available. The magnificent volume about the Muscat Opera is also spectacular. In Arabia, people don’t just dig into their rich pockets for elegant horses, they also have a taste for books with gold edges, the finest leather and the best paper, which are kept in unusual slipcases and cassettes. You could even read these books.

Despite its comparatively sparse resources, W. Georg Olms studies the FAZ intensively every day it is published. It has a permanent place in the daily routine of the publisher, which has been practiced for decades. His day begins around eight in the morning. Then W. Georg Olms has his first breakfast, porridge, and reads “die Hildesheimer weg”, i.e. the “Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung”.

At eleven o’clock the ninety-seven-year-old goes to the publishing house, where he eats bread as his second breakfast after twelve o’clock. After finishing work at 5 p.m., Olms leaves his office to have lunch. In the period that follows, which extends well after midnight, the FAZ comes into play. The publisher also reads “Die Zeit” every week; He even had a letter from Countess Dönhoff framed.

In the FAZ, W. Georg Olms is particularly interested in the two opinion articles on page one. He then reads the articles from politics, economics and the features section whose headlines arouse his interest. According to Olms, he never had to suffer an internal rift with the newspaper’s line or the articles of a particular author. He just sorely misses the serial novel genre, which was discontinued many years ago. “It’s a shame that it’s no longer maintained today.”

What he particularly appreciates about the FAZ is that you get “the feeling of an international overview”. The publisher foregoes the television news as it is “too superficial” for him. The publisher continues to consider the written word in a high-quality newspaper like the FAZ to be the superior medium. “Because it is the best way to become familiar with the events and ideas on God’s earth.”

And for the publisher, the written word continues to be identical to the printed word. Olms would never come up with the idea of ​​switching to e-paper because of the earlier publication date or the better lighting. The printed word is much more memorable and what is thought penetrates the brain better. He doesn’t want to believe that print will end. “I don’t think that will happen because in the end reason prevails.”

However, Olms-Verlag is also feeling the upheaval caused by digitalization. The library business is increasingly shifting to large publishers that offer large digital packages. The Hildesheim publishing house therefore sold its science division a year ago to the Baden-Baden publishing house Nomos Verlag, which belongs to CH Beck. Some editors moved there with the program. The son Dietrich Olms now also works for Nomos, but also for the divisions of the Olms publishing house that remained in Hildesheim.