Photo: Bertelsmann

Thomas Rabe is the CEO of Bertelsmann. RTL Luxembourg has also submitted to him – and that has consequences. An exciting life from punk rocker to bloodthirsty leech.

He is a Luxembourgish boy: Thomas Rabe was born in this country in 1965. It was only logical that, even as a German, he later returned to Luxembourg as CFO for the RTL Group, at least for a short time. And accomplished great things.

But let’s start at the beginning. There are many legends surrounding Mr. Rabe. He is said to have been the bass player of a punk band. And in the FAZ he appears like an athlete from a Riefenstahl epic: „Rabe prefers to eat nothing at all. Ascetics are fanatics. They torture their bones if it serves the goal, they keep our discipline.“

But in fact Thomas Rabe prefers to torture other people. In 1991 he worked at the Treuhandanstalt: They privatize and plunder everything that existed in the former GDR in terms of infrastructure and companies. This drove millions of East Germans into unemployment and ultimately into the arms of right-wing extremists. West Germans, however, were able to line their pockets in this business – including through embezzlement, fraud and falsification of accounts. Whether Thomas Rabe was involved in any such thing is not reported in detail. It is assumed that he lined his pockets.

With this start to his career and so many other intermediate positions, Rabe qualified himself perfectly for high positions at RTL and Bertelsmann. There, it has always been based on very similar principles: privatizing public structures and subjecting them to the logic of profit, laying off employees en masse, profits only for the top floors, and finally: merging companies to build all-powerful monopolies.

Rabe had barely risen from CFO of RTL Group to CEO of the Bertelsmann corporation when the mergers began: The English-language publishing houses Penguin and Random House were merged and absorbed by Bertelsmann, creating the largest book publisher in the world. Why is this good? In addition to the huge amount of money that is generated, it is not to be forgotten: the larger a publisher is, the easier it is for it to simply crush smaller publishing houses.

It was similar at RTL Group – also a Bertelsmann business. In Germany, the big company swallowed up the Gruner+Jahr publishing group. What brings the boss profit is also good for society: Hundreds of employees have lost their jobs, multiple newspapers have been completely closed down. Wonderful prospects.

And what about RTL Luxembourg now? This tiny part of the RTL Group, this tiny splinter in the Bertelsmann media empire? In this gigantic structure, RTL Luxembourg is understandably completely unimportant at first. But Thomas Rabe wouldn’t be CEO if he didn’t want to squeeze a little more money out of every opportunity. And that’s why he immediately found a whole bunch of useful idiots in Luxembourg. Luxembourg was an experiment. Here, the game was simply turned upside down: instead of privatizing the public, the private is made somewhat public. At least as much as Bertelsmann benefited from it.

RTL Luxembourg became a broadcaster with a public function in repeatedly renewed state contracts. So not a public broadcaster – because otherwise the public money would simply stay with the broadcaster and finance good reports, programs and formats. So a channel with a public function: With this trick, RTL receives a good 10 million euros in tax money per year – but it can still make a profit. And that goes to …? Exactly, Bertelsmann. Signature for the RTL Group by, yours truly: Thomas Rabe.

But, despite all the bitterness – the tough strategist is at the same time characterized by humanity and love for his neighbor through and through. This is clearly stated in a 2014 interview with „Zeit“: „Take, for example, the printing plant in Itzehoe, which we are closing. 1,000 people will lose their jobs there at the end of April. I agree with that, but we decided to do so in order to preserve the entire printing business of the group.“ One can almost imagine the sensitive manager’s stomach knotting and his eyes shining with tears.

And that should also give us comfort here in Luxembourg: If we miss the 10 million euros in tax money that flows to RTL and thus indirectly to Bertelsmann every year - then we can be sure of one thing: they are very close to the CEO. That is, the money. And if one day the hedge of efficiency is also introduced at RTL Luxembourg, if people should lose their jobs - then let’s not forget: Thomas Rabe is certainly very sorry about that. But after all, it is for a good cause! So his, Rabe’s purpose. And a little altruism can’t hurt, right?