The Der Spiegel Affair, 1962

Der Spiegel was Germany's leading weekly political magazine with a readership of around 5 million.
A controversial article of 1961 accused Franz-Josef Strauss of reccommending the Fibag construction company for the construction of apartments for the US military in Germany.
They claimed this deal had been made because his friend, Hans Kapfinger, was a share-holder in the company.
An investigating parlimentary commission found Strauss not guilty of misconduct, but it soured his relationship with the paper and its owner Rudolf Augstein.
On October 8th 1962, the paper published an article: 'Bedingt abwehrbereit' (Partially prepared for defence), in which it suggested that the Bundeswehr was under-funded and ill-equipped to deal with a communist threat from the East.
This was an attack on Strauss' Defence Department.
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