Bertelsmann ex-chief (and New York Times director) is jailed

Bertelsmann ex-chief (and New York Times director) is jailed

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norman lebrecht

November 15, 2014

The swashbuckling Thomas Middelhoff got three years for embezzlement, starting now.

A freewheeling thief, he controlled a large chunk of the book and music industries.

Read here.

 

middelhoff

 

Comments

  • Alexander Hall says:
    November 15, 2014 at 9:14 pm

    He was one of several captains of industry who gave the German business world a reputation for smugness and arrogance, topped perhaps only by Deutsche Bank’s Rolf Breuer, permanently tanned, who regarded most of the assets of his bank’s private customers as nothing more than “peanuts”. Thus have the mighty fallen.

    Reply
  • michael endres says:
    November 16, 2014 at 10:49 am

    He embezzled 900.000 Euros and fair enough he should be punished.
    Good on the German jurisdiction for being tough here.
    In other countries one is a little bit more understanding regarding shady financial dealings…
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-banker-jail-financial-crisis.html

    Reply
  • Prewartreasure says:
    November 16, 2014 at 2:34 pm

    Good to read on Slipped Disc, at last, about a middle aged male being jailed for an offence other than indecency!

    Reply
  • stopthemusic says:
    November 16, 2014 at 5:59 pm

    Middlehoff was only one of the many criminals who ran (& robbed) the various Bertelsmann divisions, under the unwatchful gaze of the truly inept & incapable Mohn family – who had far more money than brains. Many of us observed in horror when Bertelsmann purchased RCA Red Seal (renaming it BMG Classics), only to pummel the world’s greatest catalog of recorded music into obscurity under the “leadership” of such nincompoops as Michael Dornemann, Rudi Gassner, and the hopelessly retarded Gunter Hensler. And they, in turn, hired idiots from wine, Coca-Cola & yogurt companies to “market” classical music. In 1996, BMG Classics caved-in under the weight of its collective stupidity, the afore-mentioned names were eventually dismissed, the classical division was shrunk into a tiny department, and that great catalog has now vanished into the folds of Sony.

    Reply

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