“Consider what happened two months ago, when Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner ordered the Israeli flag to be flown, alongside those of Germany and the European Union, outside the company’s Berlin headquarters. The order came after a spate of antisemitic attacks in Germany following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in May.

“Döpfner’s expression of solidarity with the Jewish state (and with the European Jews who invariably become targets whenever violence erupts in the Middle East) upset some of his 15,000 employees, a small number of whom complained that Springer—which owns several Israeli websites, and whose jewels include the sober broadsheet Die Welt and the lively tabloid Bild, the bestselling paper in Europe—was taking sides in a contentious geopolitical conflict.

“Were such a dispute to unfold at an elite institution in the United States, it’s not difficult to envisage what would follow. Seeking to mollify his staffers, students, or some other group ostensibly subordinate to him, Döpfner’s American counterpart would bend over backwards to rectify his grave offense.

“He would issue a groveling apology, replete with woke buzzwords and catchphrases, promising to ‘do the work’ necessary to educate himself about the ‘literal violence’ he had inflicted on ‘people of color.’ He would confess his ‘white privilege.’ He would ask his Muslim colleagues, so traumatized by his invidious endorsement of ‘Zionist imperialism’ and ‘settler colonialism,’ for forgiveness. And finally, when this litany of self-abnegation failed to appease the people he hired and had the ability to fire, he would resign.

“Döpfner took a different tack. ‘I think, and I’m being very frank with you,’ he said on a companywide conference call, ‘a person who has an issue with an Israeli flag being raised for one week here, after antisemitic demonstrations, should look for a new job.’ And with that, the minor uprising at Axel Springer was kaput.”

Here’s the good news: Dopner is in talks about the future ownership of Politico.