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[Editor's note: please go to ink FTR#1168 where all the links & formatting are provided thru-out the following text]
FTR#1168 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 24: A Pound of Cure, Part 3
FTR #1168, we noted South African links of the Struengmann brothers, apparently the source for venture capital behind BioNTech (here). Might we be seeing a manifestation of the same type of relationship that apparently exists between the Lyme Disease treatment establishment & biowarfare forces that appear to have created that scourge? (here). (Read more)
FTR #1168 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Significant to the issue of vaccination against Covid-19 is the consideration of whether available vaccines will prevent illness in the recipients, but still leave them capable of spreading the disease.
The first major portion of the program consists of analytical review of the capital interests behind BioNTech–the German corporate partner producing a Covid vaccine with Pfizer.
Headed by a German MD couple whose parents were “gastarbeiter” (guest workers), BioNTech has soared exponentially in value since the approval of the vaccine by a number of countries.
A dominant consideration in power politics remains the advisory to “Follow the Money.”
Against the background of I.G. Farben and its successor companies’ dominant position in both the global pharmaceutical and chemical market, as well as its major position within the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, the program explores the capitalization of U?ur ?ahin and Özlem Türeci’s Ganymed firm and BioNTech.
Of paramount significance in both Ganymed (the couple’s initial commercial venture) and BioNtech are twin brothers Thomas and Andreas Struengmann.
Key points of analysis:
The brothers are major players in the pharmaceutical and biotech market.
They keep a purposefully low professional profile–a professional behavior characteristic of the deadly Bormann network.
Thomas was an important member of the board of Wacker Chemie, a major successor to two I.G. Farben subsidiary companies.
Wacker Chemie has apparently obfuscated its Nazi past.
Andreas initiated his medical career in apartheid South Africa, and the brothers’ Hexal firm began its significant international expansion in that country. (The apartheid regime was an offshoot of the Third Reich.)
Firms that evolved from I.G. Farben figure prominently in the dealings of Hexal, Wacker Chemie and BioNTech (Novartis, the Hoechst division of Sanofi-Aventis.)
The balance of the program presents analysis of the profound relationship between the Bormann capital network and I.G. Farben.
Forged during the closing days of the war, the close cooperation between corporate “masker” Hermann Schmitz and Bormann, the relationship built on the dominant position of I.G. Farben in the Third Reich and its interrelated military and industrial/commercial campaigns.
” . . . . If there is any doubt in Europe who in the long run won the peace, there is none whatsoever among the former German leaders dwelling in South America. It is a good bet that if Hermann Schmitz were alive today, he would bear witness as to who really won. Schmitz died contented, having witnessed the resurgence of I.G. Farben, albeit in altered corporate forms, a money machine that continues to generate profits for all the old I.G. shareholders and enormous international power for the German cadre directing the workings of the successor firms. . . . He was the master manipulator, the corporate and financial wizard, the magician, who could make money appear and disappear, and reappear again. His whole existence was legerdemain, played out on the gameboard of I.G. Farben and his beloved Germany. . . Their [Schmitz and Bormann] association was close and trusting over the years, and it is the considered opinion of those in their circle that the wealth possessed by Hermann Schmitz was shifted to Switzerland and South America, and placed in trust with Bormann, the legal heir to Hitler. [Hermann] Schmitz’s wealth—largely I.G. Farben bearer bonds converted to the Big Three successor firms, shares in Standard Oil of New Jersey (equal to those held by the Rockefellers), as well as shares in the 750 corporations he helped Bormann establish during the last year of World War II—has increased in all segments of the modern industrial world. The Bormann organization in South America utilizes the voting power of the Schmitz trust along with their own assets to guide the multinationals they control, as they keep steady the economic course of the Fatherland. . . . ”
After the war, the three main successor firms to I.G.–Hoechst (now a division of Sanofi-Aventis), Bayer and BASF rose to a pinnacle of sales and R & D dominance.
Review of Dorothy Thompson’s 1940 analysis of the Third Reich blueprint for world political domination, predicated on world economic domination (including the exploitation of decisive cartel relationships with the Wall Street elite; an account of Bertelsmann’s forthcoming purchase of Simon & Schuster, making this “former” publishing house for the SS a “Titan” in English-language publishing; a synoptic review of the scenario presented in the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk.
1a. Significant to the issue of vaccination against Covid-19 is the consideration of whether available vaccines will prevent illness in the recipients, but still leave them capable of spreading the disease.
“A Vaccine Protects You, But What About Others? That’s Where Masks Come In” by Apoorva Mandavili; The New York Times; 12/09/2020; p. A5.
The new Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna seem to be remarkably good at preventing serious illness. But it’s unclear how well they will curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Thats’s because the Pfizer and Moderna trials tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with Covid-19. That leaves open the possibility that some vaccinated people get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus—especially if they come in close contact with others or stop wearing masks.
If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk.
“A lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks anymore,” said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University, “It’s really going to be critical for them to know if they have to keep wearing masks, because they could still be contagious.”
In most respiratory infections, including the new coronavirus, the nose is the main port of entry. The virus rapidly multiplies there, jolting the immune system to produce a type of antibodies that are specific to mucosa, the moist tissue lining the nose, mouth, lungs and stomach. If the same person is exposed to the virus a second time, those antibodies, as well as immune cells that remember the virus, rapidly shut down the virus in the nose before it gets a chance to take hold elsewhere in the body.
The coronavirus vaccines, in contrast, are injected deep into the muscles and quickly absorbed into the blood, where they stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill.
Some of these antibodies will circulate to the nasal mucosa and stand guard there, but it’s not clear how much of the antibody pool can be mobilized, or how quickly. If the answer is not much, then viruses could bloom in the nose—and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others.
“It’s a race: It depends whether the virus can replicate faster, or the immune system can control it faster,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s a really important question.” . . . .
. . . . “Preventing severe disease is easiest, preventing mild disease is harder, and preventing all infections is the hardest,” said Deepta Battacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. “It’s going to be something less than that in preventing all infections, for sure,” Still, he and other experts said they were optimistic that the vaccines would suppress the virus enough even in the nose and throat to prevent immunized people from spreading it to others. . . .
. . . . But some studies have suggested that even people with no symptoms can have high amounts of coronavirus in their nose, noted Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, who represents the American Academy of Pediatrics at meetings of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The first person confirmed to be reinfected with the coronavirus, a 33-year-old man in Hong Kong, also did not have symptoms, but harbored enough virus to infect others.
Vaccinated people who have a high viral load but don’t have symptoms “would actually, be in some ways, even worse spreaders because they may be under a false sense of security,” Dr. Maldonado said. . . .
1b. The first major section of the program consists of analytical review of the capital interests behind BioNTech–the German corporate partner producing a Covid vaccine with Pfizer.
Headed by a German MD couple whose parents were “gastarbeiter” (guest workers), BioNTech has soared exponentially in value since the approval of the vaccine by a number of countries.
A dominant consideration in power politics remains the advisory to “Follow the Money.”
Against the background of I.G. Farben and its successor companies’ dominant position in both the global pharmaceutical and chemical market, as well as its major position within the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, the program explores the capitalization of U?ur ?ahin and Özlem Türeci’s Ganymed firm and BioNTech.
Of paramount significance in both Ganymed (the couple’s initial commercial venture) and BioNtech are twin brothers Thomas and Andreas Struengmann.
Key points of analysis:
The brothers are major players in the pharmaceutical and biotech market.
They keep a purposefully low professional profile–a professional behavior characteristic of the deadly Bormann network.
Thomas was an important member of the board of Wacker Chemie, a major successor to two I.G. Farben subsidiary companies.
Wacker Chemie has apparently obfuscated its Nazi past.
Andreas initiated his medical career in apartheid South Africa, and the brothers’ Hexal firm began its significant international expansion in that country. (The apartheid regime was an offshoot of the Third Reich.)
Firms that evolved from I.G. Farben figure prominently in the dealings of Hexal, Wacker Chemie and BioNTech (Novartis, the Hoechst division of Sanofi-Aventis.)
1c. The I.G. Farben company, a core element of the Third Reich, was central to Bormann’s plans to secret Germany’s wealth abroad. Note, also, I.G. Farben’s dominance of the European chemical industry, and the opinion of Dr. von Schnitzler that technical dependence on I.G. facilities would continue after the war. (To learn more about I.G. Farben, see—among other programs–FTR#’s 305, 411, 506, 552. Serious students should also read Treason’s Peace and The Devil’s Chemists, available for download.)
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 28.
. . . I.G. Farben was a formidable ally for Reichsleiter Bormann in his plans for the postwar economic rebirth of Germany. In a telephone conversation with Dr. von Schnitzler, Bormann asked what would the loss of factories in France and the other occupied countries mean to German industry in general and to I.G. in particular. Dr. von Schnitzler said he believed the technical dependence of these countries on I.G. would be so great that despite German defeat I.G., in one way or another, could regain its position of control of the European chemical business. “They will need the constant technical help of I.G.’s scientific laboratories as they do not own appropriate installations within themselves.” . . . .
2. Bormann and Herrmann Schmitz then discussed I.G.’s prospects for the postwar period. The cozy relationship with powerful elements within the power elites of the Western allies was foreseen by Schmitz as boding well for the company’s future. Schmitz’s predictions were relatively accurate. Neither Schmitz nor any of the I.G. Farben executives were severely punished and the firm’s three successor firms carried on effectively in the postwar period.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 158.
. . . . The Reichsleiter asked Schmitz his views of the future. Schmitz replied, ‘The occupation armies will be understanding in the West, but certainly not in the East. I have instructed all Farben administrators and technicians to come to the West, where they can be of use in resuming our operations once the disturbances of 1945 come to a halt.’ Schmitz added that, while general bomb damage to the I.G. plants was about 25 percent of capacity, some were untouched. He mentioned speaking with Field Marshal Model, who was commanding the defenses of the Ruhr. ‘Model had planned to turn our Bayer-Leberkusen pharmaceutical factory into an artillery base, but he agreed to make it an open, undefended factory. Hopefully, we will get it back untouched.’ ‘What about your board of directors and the essential executives? If they are held by the occupation authorities, can I.G. continue?’ Bormann asked. ‘We can continue. We have an operational plan for such a contingency, which everyone understands. However, I don’t believe our board members will be detained too long. Nor will I. But we must go through a procedure of investigation before release, so I have been told by our N.W. 7 people who have excellent contacts in Washington.” . . . .
3. The broadcast details the profound relationship between I.G. Farben and the government of the Third Reich. Of particular utility to the Bormann flight capital program was I.G. Farben’s elaborate infrastructure in foreign countries. Note that, as is seen here, I.G. Farben was inextricably linked with both the government of the Third Reich and with the Nazi party itself.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 54.
. . . This, too, reported to Martin Bormann.I.G. Farben’s N.W.7 office in Berlin compiled military and economic data on all countries for the Wehrmacht. This department was staffed with men of recognized ability in all branches of business and science. It was under the direction of Dr. Max Ilgner, nephew of Hermann Schmitz, I.G.’s president, who was known throughout the industrial world as ‘the master of financial camouflage.’ [Emphasis added.] Farben had offices and representatives in 93 countries, and no social gathering of businessmen was too small to be covered by an N.W.7 representative, whose reports on market conditions, factory installations, raw-material supplies, and research were transmitted immediately to Berlin and Dr. Ilgner. In the United States, N.W.7 operated through the firm of Chemnyco, Inc., an American-formed subsidiary. Chemnyco sent tremendous amounts of information ranging from photographs and blue prints to detailed descriptions of entire industrial complexes and secret processes. . . .
4. Of particular importance for this discussion is the fact that I.G. used German military conquest to gain effective functional control of the chemical industry of the continent. In paragraph 13, we noted Georg von Scnitzler’s prediction that I.G.’s technical dominance would result in the postwar perpetuation of this control. As we will see, this control was maintained. It is against the background of I.G. Farben’s continued dominance of the European chemical industry as well as the postwar perpetuation of the Nazi party apparatus that the BioNTech capitalization relationship must be viewed!
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 55–56.
. . . This huge organization functioned as a manufacturing and research arm of the German government, with the responsibility of discovering all possible means of increasing the military power of Germany. More than RM 4.25 billion was invested in new plants, mines, and power installations, with other millions going into new research facilities. . . . So close had Farben become to the government that I.G. always knew in advance all invasions planned by Hitler. It was to supply the materials necessary to each conquest, and when a land had been overrun and subjugated, the Farben experts would handle the consolidation and organization of the industrial facilities as additional supply sources for the German armed forces. As German troops swept across Europe and Hitler proclaimed his vision of a thousand-year Third Reich, I.G. Farben also dreamed of world empire. This was outlined with clarity in a document called Neuordnung, or ‘New Order,’ that was accompanied by a letter of transmittal to the Ministry of Economics. It declared that a new order for the chemical industry of the world should supplement Hitler’s New Order. Therefore, the document stated, Farben was fitting future industrial plans into such a framework. . . . I.G. Farben was the major chemical firm on the Continent, and as each country fell to Germany its acquisitions of chemical and dyestuff companies were enormous. I.G. also increased its investments in these by RM 7 billion. [Emphasis added.] . . . .
5. More about I.G. Farben, the Third Reich and the development of the remarkable and deadly Bormann organization.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 56–58.
. . . .The close relationship of Farben to the Third Reich leadership was underscored in other ways. I.G.’s leading officials assisted in formulation and execution of economic policies of government; its president was a member of the Reichstag; its leading scientist was a chief assistant to Hermann Goering under the Four-Year Plan; its statisticians and economists prepared intelligence for the Nazi High Command; scores of its technicians were at any given time on loan to the air and war ministries. . . . The contact men of N.W.7 throughout the world were called the I.G. Verbindungsmanner, the liaison officers between Farben back in Germany and the branches elsewhere. These I.G. Verbindungsmanner, as well as all other key Farben representatives working beyond the borders of the Third Reich, were members of the National Socialist German Workers Party. . . . So now Martin Bormann had at his command not only the Auslands-Organisation but also the I.G. Verbindungsmanner of Farben, which could be counted on to heed his orders when it was time to disperse the commercial assets of the Third Reich. . . .
6. The vast international operations of the I.G. Farben firm and its various subsidiary operations was a principal element of the Bormann organization. I.G. Farben chief Hermann Schmitz discussed I.G.’s involvement with the Bormann program.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 157–158.
. . . . In testimony later given to Nuremberg investigators, Schmitz praised Bormann for the way he had directed the distribution of German assets around the world. His own Farben organization had, of course, contributed to the success of the operation. Every regional representative working for Hermann Schmitz was an exceptional businessman, or he would not have been with I.G. All had contributed sound advice in their areas of competence, the regions of the world where they represented Farben while keeping an eye on the subsidiaries of the parent concern and the 700 hidden corporations they controlled. They had provided assistance and continuing guidance in establishing the 750 new companies created on order of Bormann, who wanted more than hidden assets; Bormann wanted the money and patents and technicians put to work to create even greater assets that would bolster Germany in the postwar years. In their meeting in the chancellery, both men checked over the figures of sums disbursed, and they were accurate to the pfennig. . . .
7. As forecast by Dr. Scheid in the August 10, 1944 meeting, the corporate allies of the major German corporations, including and especially those of I.G. Farben, proved to be of great value to the success of the Bormann flight capital program.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p156.
. . . . Powerful friends of the Bormann organization in all Western countries, including those sprinkled in control points throughout the administration in Washington and in the financial and brokerage businesses of Wall Street, the City of London, and the Paris establishment, did not wish a coordinated drive to get at these external German assets. They had understandable reasons, if you overlook morality: the financial benefits for cooperation (collaboration had become an old-hat term with the war winding down) were very enticing, depending on one’s importance and ability to be of service to the organization and the 750 corporations they were secretly manipulating, to say nothing of the known multinationals such as I.G. Farben, Thyssen A.G., and Siemens; and, as a second reason, the philosophy of free enterprise and preservation of private property. . . .
8. Note the postwar resuscitation of I.G. Farben, in the form of the “Big Three” successor firms that grew out Farben. Although officially broken up at the end of World War II, I.G. Farben continued functioning in new form. Recent mergers (such as the 1996 merger of I.G. cartel affiliates Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz to form Novartis) indicate a new coming together of the old components of I.G. Again, pay close attention to the relationship between these companies and the Bormann capital network.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 282.
. . . . By 1956, the three major multinationals (Hoechst, BASF, and Bayer) reshaped from the 159 companies within Germany that had comprised I.G. Farben were generating record profits for the original 450 major Farben stockholders, who had organized themselves into the I.G. Farben Stockholders Protective committee in Bonn. The Big Three went on expanding, tripling capitalization in 1956 from investment funds that poured in from the interlocking companies established in safe haven countries by Martin Bormann and Hermann Schmitz. There was a return, more vigorous than ever, of the huge, monolithic industrial multinationals that dominated the German economy before and during World War II. . . .
9. The enormous corporate wealth and power of the three successor firms is at the disposal of the Bormann capital network and Underground Reich.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 282–283.
. . . . Each of these three spinoffs from I.G. Farben today does more business individually than did Farben at its zenith, when its corporate structure covered 93 countries. BASF and Bayer individually boast worldwide sales of nearly $10 billion annually, while Hoechst, now the world’s largest chemical company, generated $16.01 billion in worldwide sales in 1980. Each does more business than E.I. du Pont de Nemours, with sales of $9.4 billion. The United States is, of course, the major market, one into which these German corporations continue to pour investment money for both new capital construction and corporate takeovers. Together, these three multinationals assure permanent prosperity for the original 450 Farben stockholders, their banks, and the shadowy shareholders of the Bormann organization in South America who guard and vote the Hermann Schmitz trust fund through intermediaries at the annual meetings of BASF, Bayer and Hoechst. [Emphasis added.] . . . .
10. A significant part of the I.G. Farben legacy, the Hermann Schmitz Trust is also at the disposal of the Bormann capital network and the Underground Reich.
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 279–280.
. . . . If there is any doubt in Europe who in the long run won the peace, there is none whatsoever among the former German leaders dwelling in South America. It is a good bet that if Hermann Schmitz were alive today, he would bear witness as to who really won. Schmitz died contented, having witnessed the resurgence of I.G. Farben, albeit in altered corporate forms, a money machine that continues to generate profits for all the old I.G. shareholders and enormous international power for the German cadre directing the workings of the successor firms. . . . He was the master manipulator, the corporate and financial wizard, the magician, who could make money appear and disappear, and reappear again. His whole existence was legerdemain, played out on the gameboard of I.G. Farben and his beloved Germany. . . Their [Schmitz and Bormann] association was close and trusting over the years, and it is the considered opinion of those in their circle that the wealth possessed by Hermann Schmitz was shifted to Switzerland and South America, and placed in trust with Bormann, the legal heir to Hitler. [Hermann] Schmitz’s wealth—largely I.G. Farben bearer bonds converted to the Big Three successor firms, shares in Standard Oil of New Jersey (equal to those held by the Rockefellers), as well as shares in the 750 corporations he helped Bormann establish during the last year of World War II—has increased in all segments of the modern industrial world. The Bormann organization in South America utilizes the voting power of the Schmitz trust along with their own assets to guide the multinationals they control, as they keep steady the economic course of the Fatherland. . . .
11. In closing, the program notes the economic and political significance of the Bormann network:
Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 284–285.
. . . . Atop an organizational pyramid that dominates the industry of West Germany through banks, voting rights enjoyed by majority shareholders in significant cartels, and the professional input of a relatively young leadership group of lawyers, investment specialists, bankers, and industrialists, he is satisfied that he achieved his aim of helping the Fatherland back on its feet. To ensure continuity of purpose and direction, a close watch is maintained on the profit statements and management reports of corporations under its control elsewhere. This leadership group of twenty, which is in fact a board of directors, is chaired by Bormann, but power has shifted to the younger men who will carry on the initiative that grew from that historic meeting in Strasbourg on August 10, 1944. Old Heinrich Mueller, chief of security for the NSDAP in South America, is the most feared of all, having the power of life and death over those deemed not to be acting in the best interests of the organization. Some still envision a Fourth Reich. . .What will not pass is the economic influences of the Bormann organization, whose commercial directives are obeyed almost without question by the highest echelons of West German finance and industry. ‘All orders come from the shareholders in South America,’ I have been told by a spokesman for Martin Bormann. . . .
12a. We close with Dorothy Thompson’s analysis of Germany’s plans for world dominance by a centralized European economic union, utilizing dominant corporate relationships with American corporations to effect control of the United States.
Ms. Thompson was writing in The New York Herald Tribune on May 31, 1940! Her comments are reproduced by Tetens on page 92.
Germany Plots with the Kremlin; T.H. Tetens; Henry Schuman [HC]; 1953; p. 92.
. . . . The Germans have a clear plan of what they intend to do in case of victory. I believe that I know the essential details of that plan. I have heard it from a sufficient number of important Germans to credit its authenticity . . . Germany’s plan is to make a customs union of Europe, with complete financial and economic control centered in Berlin. This will create at once the largest free trade area and the largest planned economy in the world. In Western Europe alone . . . there will be an economic unity of 400 million persons . . . To these will be added the resources of the British, French, Dutch and Belgian empires. These will be pooled in the name of Europa Germanica . . .
“The Germans count upon political power following economic power, and not vice versa. Territorial changes do not concern them, because there will be no ‘France’ or ‘England,’ except as language groups. Little immediate concern is felt regarding political organizations . . . . No nation will have the control of its own financial or economic system or of its customs. [Italics are mine–D.E.] The Nazification of all countries will be accomplished by economic pressure. In all countries, contacts have been established long ago with sympathetic businessmen and industrialists . . . . As far as the United States is concerned, the planners of the World Germanica laugh off the idea of any armed invasion. They say that it will be completely unnecessary to take military action against the United States to force it to play ball with this system. . . . Here, as in every other country, they have established relations with numerous industries and commercial organizations, to whom they will offer advantages in co-operation with Germany. . . .
13. We have discussed the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk in many programs and posts. Bertelsmann appears to be cementing Underground Reich control of English language publishing.
“Deal Turns Book Giant Into a Titan” by Alexandra Alter and Edmund Lee; The New York Times; 11/25/2020.
The biggest book publisher in the United States is about to get bigger. ViacomCBS has agreed to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for more than $2 billion in a deal that will create the first megapublisher.
Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher in the United States, is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Adding Simon & Schuster, the third largest publisher, would create a book behemoth, a combination that could trigger antitrust concerns.
The deal announced on Wednesday includes provisions that would protect ViacomCBS in the event that a sale is squashed by authorities. Bertelsmann would pay what is known as a termination fee if the deal does not go through.
The sale of the company will profoundly reshape the publishing industry, increasingly a winner-take-all business in which the largest companies compete for brand-name authors and guaranteed best-sellers. . . .
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