Oedipus strikes Germany's last man of letters

A family rift threatens the future of a great publishing tradition, reports Imre Karacs from Frankfurt

In the twilight of his years, Siegfried Unseld surveys the universe from his villa in an exclusive part of Frankfurt with a deep sense of foreboding.

For four decades he has nurtured the thoughts and literary tastes of his nation, moulding the Jewish-German tradition into the political and literary consensus of the postwar years. Under his reign, the publishing house he inherited from a concentration camp survivor became a byword for the country's intellectual elite; the phrase "Suhrkamp culture" invoked both in awe and in condemnation of the incestuous world of German letters.

Now that era is drawing to a close. Suhrkamp books, though still basking in critical acclaim, leave today's generation cold. The bookshops report that Germans are no longer turned on by earnest home-grown inquiries into the human condition. The consumer of the Nineties is seeking pleasure of a less strenuous kind, and discovering it in the packaged products of commercial houses that feed on the creative energies of North America.

In the face of this torrent Mr Unseld has raised the ramparts, forswearing in disgust the "best-sellers" penned by contemporary American authors, and putting his faith instead in native talent and in gems found in other continents. It is a lonely battle that will end on the day of his death. Mr Unseld, aged 72, intends to disinherit his sole heir, turning the DM100m (pounds 40m) a year business over to a foundation he has set up for the purpose. The last big German house built on the owner's personal relationship with his authors will pass into the hands of an impersonal committee.

For now the Unseld villa remains a shrine to serious literature. Part of the house has been converted to self-contained flats where authors can stay undisturbed and free of charge whenever they are in town. In the basement, Suhrkamp first editions are stacked in chronological order in a climate-controlled bunker, next to rows of empty shelves that will be home to the volumes of the next millennium. There are books running up to the ceiling in every room of the house, except his bedroom. On the walls hang two Andy Warhol portraits of Goethe and a picture of Marilyn Monroe, reposing on a lawn with James Joyce's Ulysses on her lap. "She is reading the pages in the back - the pornographic parts," Mr Unseld chuckles.

In the largest room stand what the publisher describes as the "twin pillars of the Suhrkamp fortunes": rows of Hermann Hesses and Bertolt Brechts. Hesse helped found the company, and Brecht was also a good friend. Suhrkamp holds the global rights to both, ensuring steady earnings for years to come. Every time Mother Courage is staged in a far-off land or a copy of Steppenwolf is purchased, the tills in Frankfurt start ringing. "With these rights we are an unsinkable ship."

They had better be, for he sees no one to follow in his footsteps. "There are no publishers left," he laments. "They are all conglomerates now." All but one: a man who knows the writers intimately, a man with fresh ideas who was once groomed to take over the company. He, alas, has set up stall elsewhere and now seeks to overthrow the Suhrkamp establishment. His name is Joachim Unseld.

The patriarch's 44-year old son still owns 20 per cent of the firm - a parental gift of his youth - and meets his father at occasional board meetings. Otherwise, all they have in common is that they swim in the same pool every morning - though at different times - and both make their living out of literature.

Relations between father and son turned sour six years ago, about the time the head of the family married Ulla Berkewicz, a voluptuous actress- turned-writer. Son and step-mother were roughly the same age, and connoisseurs of Greek drama smacked their lips in anticipation.

The conflict came shortly after the wedding. "What lies behind it can be read in any textbook on psychoanalysis ... under the heading Oedipus," the father is said to have remarked once. "I never said such a thing," he protests now, his voice trembling in anguish. "I would not do anything to hurt him." What he would say is that Joachim, perhaps driven by jealousy, tried to oust his father. "He was pushing for power," says Mr Unseld Senior. "So he had to leave."

Joachim Unseld now plies his trade in another part of Frankfurt, slowly building a reputation for his ability to spot new talent. As for Siegfried, who all those years ago took over a publisher of 20 new volumes a year and turned it into a power-house of culture, there is only posterity to look forward to. "We have the financial basis to become a spiritual institution," he says. A place of worship, in other words, or perhaps a sacred burial ground.