Suhrkamp

Suhrkamp Verlag was founded in 1950 by Peter Suhrkamp who had also founded the S. Fischer Verlag in 1936. Suhrkamp was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, but survived the concentration camp. When Suhrkamp started his own company he took a lot of writers from S. Fischer Verlag with him to his new start-up company. Among the first writers he produced work of were Rudolf Alexander Schröder, Hermann Kasack, T.S. Eliot, George Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht.

Siegfried Unseld joined the company in 1952, becoming co-owner in 1957 and it's publisher after Suhrkamp died in 1959. He led Suhrkamp Verlag until he died in 2002. His widow Ulla Berkéwicz now leads the company which has 140 workers and a yearly turnover of about 40 million euros.

Suhrkamp Verlag, producer of fine European literature moved it's headquarters from Frankfurt to Berlin in 2010 and filed for bankruptcy in 2013 after a long battle for control of the company between Ulla Unseld-Berkéwicz and minority shareholder, Hans Barlach. The two battled in court for many years, costing the company a lot of money and substantial damage to it's image. Recently (in March 2013) Barlach was awarded a 2.2 million euro profit distribution following a court decision in December 2012 that Unseld-Berkéwicz and other Suhrkamp leadership had misused funds and should be fired from their respective positions with the Suhrkamp company, leaving Unseld-Berkéwicz ownership unaffected.

A new type of bankruptcy available under German law, called Schutzchirmverfahren (translation: protective shield process) was created to make it easier for viable businesses to restructure themselves. Businesses applying for Schutzchirmverfahren are given three months to restructure themselves, while still maintaining control of their business. The new law making this possible was passed in March 2012 and this is the first time a publishing house has taken the opportunity to use it. No one knows exactly what the overall effects will be, but the effects for Barlach seems clear. He's being disenfranchised and may also lose the 2,2 million euros that were awarded to him by the German courts.