'Das kirchliche Weltbild ist insolvent' — the bishops let their publisher die

Weltbild began in 1948 in Augsburg as the Winfried-Werk, a Catholic publisher and mail-order house, and grew into one of Germany's biggest book sellers. From 1975 its owners were the Church: the Verband der Diözesen Deutschlands held 24.2 percent, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising 13.2, the Diocese of Augsburg 11.7, with ten further dioceses and the military bishopric holding the rest. By 2014 the group employed more than 6,000 people — and its owners had been looking for a way out since 2011, trying a sale, then a foundation, and finding no buyer.

The trigger was a revenue slide in the first half of the 2013/14 financial year. Weltbild itself said the expected three-year revenue drop would double the money needed for a turnaround: up to 160 million euros to restructure, plus a further three-digit million amount to cut the debt. The owners decided to file — 'subito', as the FAZ reported. On 10 January 2014 Peter Beer, Generalvikar of Munich and Freising, announced the refusal: such high financial effort could not be justified in view of the remaining uncertainties. The filing went to the Augsburg court that day.

FAZ ran the headline that stuck: Das kirchliche Weltbild ist insolvent — the Church's worldview is insolvent. Five days later, about 1,500 employees signed an open letter at a works meeting in Augsburg, accusing the owners of having driven Weltbild deliberately into insolvency and sacrificed it on the altar of inner-church power struggles. The insolvency was administered, and in summer 2014 the Düsseldorf investor Droege took the majority; by 2017 it held the rest, and the Church was fully out.

Ten years later, on 10 June 2024, the holding company WB D2C Group filed for insolvency again — SZ's headline read 'mal wieder', once more. The owner was private now, the causes new: disrupted supply chains, cost inflation, aggressive competitors from Asia. No investor was found; operations ended in August, the last 14 stores closed on 31 August, and the 440 remaining staff were let go. Thalia took over the online customers and the e-book business once the cartel office agreed. The headline from 2014 had become a running joke with a second punchline.