Historical Paths

Ufa, Bertelsmann and the establishment of the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation

It may surprise some cineastes to see an international company that is commercially successful with its media businesses in more than 50 countries, and a foundation under public law, which today manages most of Germany's film heritage, appear as partners in a project to preserve a significant silent film. For several years now, Bertelsmann has been working to preserve Germany's silent-film heritage, at various levels and in pan-European context: The UFA Film Nights, for example, a festival originally established in Berlin, went on to achieve great popularity in other European countries as well; and in 2014 Bertelsmann became the main sponsor of the digital restoration of the classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. The world premiere of this version of the Expressionist masterpiece at the Berlinale 2014 became a major media event. Since then, Bertelsmann has organized further screenings in Berlin, Brussels, Madrid and New York.

In this connection, it also provided the financial support for the digital restoration of Fritz Lang's DESTINY (2016), Paul Czinner's THE FIDDLER OF FLORENCE (2018), Ernst Lubitsch’s CARMEN (2021). This year, another Lubitsch-movie, KOHLHIESEL’S DAUGHTERS, was digitally restored and will be presented at the UFA Film Nights 2024. Ultimately, however, the efforts of Europe's largest media house tie in to a historical connection that began 60 years ago.

Effective January 1, 1964, Bertelsmann acquired Universum-Film AG (Ufa), which had gone bankrupt after the reprivatization, and in so doing achieved its long-desired entry into the television production business. At that time, expansion was the order of the day in Gütersloh. Founded in 1835, the publishing house had taken its first step out of pure-play (printing and) publishing in 1950 with the establishment of the Bertelsmann Lesering, and had enjoyed rapid growth ever since. In the early 1960s, the first Lesering offshoots in other European countries were founded. Above and beyond this, Reinhard Mohn (1921-2009), the “post-war founder,” CEO and owner of Bertelsmann, was determined to expand into new lines of business, a process that had begun with the founding of the Ariola record label in 1958. And while the next step - the path to commercial television, which had moved within reach at the end of the 1950s (“Adenauer-Fernsehen”) - was still a long way off, content production for public-service TV appeared to be a worthwhile business for the future.

With the purchase of Ufa, Bertelsmann had not only acquired the brand but also Ufa's stake in Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH, Ufa Tonverlag including Vienna-based Bohème Verlag, Ufa Industrie- und Werbefilmproduktion, Ufa Fernsehproduktion, and exploitation rights to Ufa's inventory of films. Initially, Mohn had little interest in cinema productions or even the legendary silent film heritage that is so inseparably linked to the name Ufa, because after the purchase of Ufa, the focus was clearly on the television business. Bertelsmann Fernsehfilmproduktionsgesellschaft and Playhouse Studio Reinhard Mohn, which had only been founded a few years earlier, were integrated into the newly acquired Ufa in 1964. However, the Bertelsmann credo, that media such as books, films, television and records should not compete, but should complement each other as a chain of creative content, inexorably led the company in the direction of film in the following years. In April 1965 the newly acquired Ufa cinema chain was expanded by the acquisition of Pallas Filmverleih GmbH and Merkur Filmtheater. With the 15 Merkur theaters, Ufa-Theater AG now had a total of 44 movie theaters. Just three months later, on July 1, 1965, Bertelsmann acquired a 60-percent stake in the successful Constantin Film GmbH. The focus was on a common feature film production. These investments, coupled with the relatively good 1964 financials of Ufa-Theater AG, seem to have given the film industry, which was definitely ailing at the time, a glimmer of hope. “There can be no doubt,” wrote the trade magazine Filmblätter in March 1966, “that the secret high command of German film expansion is currently based in Gütersloh.”

But the company was looking forward, not back; and at first it remained unclear how one would go about exploiting Ufa's legendary film inventory, which after all represented a major asset of the newly acquired company. As early as spring 1964, an outcry was heard in the (trade) press: A sale of the films to the US-American company Seven Arts, as was apparently planned, was unthinkable... and was then promptly prohibited by the German government, via the “Ufi liquidation committee.” A directory published in 1966 in the magazine Filmecho shows just how extensive the collection was: it comprised “film rights from around 1,000 silent films and 900 sound films, 1,200 cultural films and 106 post-war films, as well as some 200 unfilmed material rights.”

After intensive discussions between the German government, Bertelsmann and Germany's leading cinematographic organization SPIO, it was finally agreed at the beginning of 1966 to establish a non-profit foundation under civil law, which took over both Bertelsmann's and Bavaria's film holdings for a total of DEM 13.8 million, for which it received a loan from the UFI liquidation proceeds, that it was expected to repay in the following years. The Wiesbaden-based foundation was named after the renowned German silent film director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. For Bertelsmann, this closed the chapter of Ufa's silent film legacy.

Meanwhile, the potential of the large Ufa brand has been exploited further, particularly after the advent of private television in the 1980s. Today, UFA is a powerful program creator within the Bertelsmann Group, which has continuously consolidated its leadership of Germany's film and television production market. And yet: To this day, its historical legacy forms an essential part of the brand's charisma. One year after the 100th anniversary of the “old” UFA, today's UFA still successfully invokes an artistic tradition that once began with Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau and many others.

As a media company that places creativity at the center of its value creation and corporate culture, Bertelsmann is also committed to safeguarding and preserving important creations of the past. Today's diversity and the Group's large, multi-digital media offering worldwide have historical roots. This is one of the reasons why Bertelsmann feels its commitment to Europe's cultural heritage is so important.