Former Bund publisher Werner H. Stuber deceased

Born in 1930, Werner H. Stuber was the great-great-grandson of the Solothurn bookseller Jouis Jent, who had founded the Bund in 1850. Stuber became publisher of the newspaper at the age of 31 and held this office initially together with his widowed grandmother, then from 1970 as sole patron. Stuber was regarded as an old-school publisher who, under the motto "small but mighty," focused on journalistic quality and independent journalism. He continued to follow this motto in the 1970s, when other newspaper companies hired publishing managers and strengthened themselves strategically through acquisitions.

However, Stuber's Bund publishing house overindebted itself with the construction of a printing center and got into increasing economic difficulties. In 1993 came the stroke of liberation when Stuber cooperated with Ringier and shortly afterwards sold the Bund to the Zurich media house. Later, the newspaper changed hands to the NZZ, and today it belongs to Tamedia.

Pride in quality journalism

At Covenant from Wednesday editors and companions remember their former publisher and boss, among them Peter Ziegler, the last editor-in-chief of the Stuber era. "A handshake counts!" was the way the publisher had run the company. Stuber had given the editorial team "freedoms that colleagues at other newspapers could only dream of. The publisher was proud of the editorial team, "and although he was not an intellectual," he promoted journalistic and intellectual excellence. He sometimes harshly put prominent politicians in their place when they complained about unpopular articles. Former Bund editor Bernhard Giger, now head of the Kornhausforum, also remembers a "patron who regularly walked through the building and greeted everyone." He was politically on the right, but still sympathized with his "rebellious editors, who were watched with increasing suspicion by bourgeois Bern. Whoever worked for him, he stood by."

Teaser: Derbund.ch/Hansueli Trachsel