The Betz family

The Betz family today holds significant stakes in Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, one of Germany's most influential media groups. The company is primarily owned by several founder families, including Betz, Droste, and Wenderoth. The media group publishes Rheinische Post, the highest-circulation newspaper in the Rhineland, as well as Bonn's General-Anzeiger, and holds a majority stake in the Saarbrücken newspaper group (which includes titles such as Saarbrücker Zeitung and Trierischer Volksfreund).

The Betz family's connection to Rheinische Post originates with Anton Betz. Prior to the Second World War, Betz worked as editor-in-chief and managing director of various publishing houses in the Munich area, including Manz AG and Knorr + Hirth Verlag. Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he lost his position and was subject to a professional ban.

In 1945, the British military administration commissioned Betz to establish a daily newspaper for the Rhineland. He asked his political associates Karl Arnold and Erich Wenderoth to support him in founding Rheinische Post, one of the first and soon most important newspapers of the young Federal Republic. The "founding fathers" of Rheinische Post shared political resistance against the Nazi regime rooted in Christian-democratic convictions. At the time of Rheinische Post's first edition, Karl Arnold was the first mayor of Düsseldorf and from 1947 the first democratically elected Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia. Jurist Erich Wenderoth was a member of the resistance group "Confessing Church" during the Nazi era, provided legal assistance to victims of the Nazi regime, and from 1945 served on the state board of the Evangelical Church of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Anton Betz was succeeded by his daughter Esther Betz, who served on the publisher collective of Rheinische Post from 1956 to 2011. She consistently pursued her father's liberal-conservative editorial line. As publisher of Rheinische Post Verlagsgruppe, she also participated in operational management. With Florian Merz-Betz, the third generation of the family is now actively involved in the business -as shareholder, deputy chairman of the supervisory board, and co-publisher.
The Betz family's influence on the German media landscape extends beyond Rheinische Post. This includes Anton Betz's co-founding of the German News Agency (dpa) and the promotion of science and journalism through the Anton-Betz Foundation, of which Esther Betz is chairwoman.