The news of Reinhard Mohn's death was extensively reported in both the German and global media. Many obituaries described him as one of the major entrepreneurs of the post-war era and praised his unfailing efforts to promote social change and the common good.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "An outstanding public figure. As a business leader Reinhard Mohn not only had a sixth sense for market opportunities but a strong commitment to social causes. Long before 'corporate identity' became a fashionable phrase he implemented a corporate culture that emphasized partnership and an ongoing dialogue between managers and their employees."
Spiegel Online: "At the same time, Mohn became famous for the unique corporate culture he developed and for his social commitment. In the 1970s he introduced a plan to provide employees with company stock . and through the 'Bertelsmann Essentials' outfitted his organization with a sort of constitution detailing the company's guiding principles. In 1977 the businessman known as 'Mohn the Red' established the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the foundation that in ensuing years made hundreds of euros available for projects geared toward promoting politics, business, education and science."
Süddeutsche Zeitung: "Reinhard Mohn was someone who left his mark on both individuals and society as a whole. He was one of the great post-war business leaders who saw opportunity in the ruins about them and who possessed the courage to build new empires in the wildly fast-paced post-war years."
Handelsblatt: "Despite his unwavering insistence on turning a profit, Mohn gladly shouldered his social duties. At the beginning of the 1990s he transferred the majority of his corporate shares to the Bertelsmann Stiftung, established in 1977. He fundamentally believed that financial wealth inherently brought with it social responsibility, as inscribed in Germany's Basic Law. Today, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, one of Germany's largest foundations, has become one of its most important think tanks."
Manager Magazin: "Like no other manager in Germany, he addressed the social responsibilities facing all business leaders, assembling a roster of values and trying to ascertain which ethical principles were universally valid. Today they are part and parcel of applied corporate management."
Neue Westfälische, Bielefeld: "His name also stands virtually alone for the effort to reconcile profit-chasing capitalism with the social responsibility that comes with financial wealth. He created a previously unknown corporate culture that emphasized his ideas of leadership while viewing employees as partners. To his mind, providing employees with access to company stock was just as vital as becoming engaged in projects that promoted the public good."
Westfalen Blatt, Bielefeld: "Reinhard Mohn not only focused on his company's economic success. He was equally concerned with the well-being of the employees -- as individuals -- that worked there. He strongly emphasized corporate culture, individual responsibility and the need for partnership between managers and their employees. He provided staff with opportunities to purchase company stock and introduced a corporate pension plan. His corporate philosophy also included profit-sharing. Employees were important to him -- and he was one of them."
Tagesspiegel, Berlin: "The world has lost an entrepreneur that within three decades transformed a midsized company into a global media group. It has also lost a visionary, one who, through the Bertelsmann Stiftung, created a think tank that has over the past 30 years been responsible for advising policymakers and shaping the future."
Financial Times Deutschland: "Mohn emphasized decentralized structures and allowed individual divisions to act as they saw fit. His work never focused on economic success. He engaged in dialogue with his employees and allowed them to benefit from the company's success."
New York Times: "As Bertelsmann grew, Mr. Mohn allowed the managers of individual business units to run things as they saw fit, an approach that makes the company less a well-oiled machine than a loose alliance of affiliated businesses. He later said the experience of rigidly authoritarian Nazi Germany, and his own stint in the military, convinced him that the top-down approach had serious shortcomings."
Variety, USA: "In 2007, in commemoration of the Bertelsmann Stiftung charitable foundation's 30th anniversary, Mohn wrote: 'when rebuilding Bertelsmann after the war, we asked ourselves which structures would be more human and more successful..We responded to the issue of capitalism's questionable "justice" by developing our own unique corporate culture.' While guaranteeing continuity at Bertelsmann, the foundation also oversees numerous projects, from political studies and educational initiatives to cultural endeavors. In 2008 it opened the foundation's North American arm in Washington, D. C."
The Wall Street Journal, New York: "Mr. Mohn prided himself as a management theorist and philanthropist. He wrote many works on business ethics and corporate social responsibility. Bertelsmann's success was only possible, Mr. Mohn stressed, because 'ethical considerations have always managed to take priority.'"
Financial Times, London: "One of Germany's most important post-second world war industrial leaders. He turned Bertelsmann from a small family-owned German publisher into a global media group and held strong views on the organisation of companies, which he was not afraid of sharing publicly."
Der Standard, Wien: "Reinhard Mohn's awareness of a business leader's social responsibility, and the responsibility for motivating the workforce, was a hallmark of Bertelsmann's corporate culture. In 1969 he introduced a profit-sharing plan and in 1977 he established the charitable Bertelsmann Stiftung, which now holds more than 70 percent of the company's shares."
El Pais, Spanien: "Reinhard Mohn has shown that a company's success depends on the development and improvement of its human capital."
El Mundo, Spanien: "He created a corporate culture with decentralized organizational structures while highly valuing each individual employee's autonomy and self-esteem."
tve, Madrid: "With him, Spain, Germany and the world has lost an extraordinary figure, one who over the past 60 years did much to transform the global economy and the world of civic engagement."