As an eleventh-gen family member and long-time head of the M DuMont Schauberg Group, Alfred Neven DuMont was one of the Germany's most important post-war newspaper publishers.
Indeed the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was among those to offer words of praise at his 80th birthday party, in 2007. Her attendance was unsurprising given that Neven DuMont was chairman of a company that produced newspapers read by millions of Germans each day.