The Migros press

The first edition of Die Brücke was printed in 1927. The modest newspaper was Gottlieb Duttweiler’s first foray into the world of publishing and was followed by Azione in Ticino, Wir Brückenbauer and Construire in Romandie. Today Migros has a significant media presence with around three million readers.

Duttweiler is not only an extremely gifted businessman, but also a very talented communicator. In the course of his life, he gives countless speeches and writes about 2,700 articles. He makes Migros into both the largest retailer in Switzerland and a publishing power.
The story begins in 1927 with a text advertisement called Zeitung in der Zeitung, which appears weekly in various daily newspapers and soon acquires the subtitle: “The advertisement which wants to give the reader something”. As pressure from Migros’ opponents leads the publishers increasingly to refuse to print this advertisement, Duttweiler starts his own publication. Hence, from October 1927, Die Brücke, something of a modest Migros newspaper, appears intermittently in locations where Migros is well established. Die Brücke contains an increasing number of inter-regional articles, as well as individual articles related to situations in the cantons in which the newspaper is distributed.

The first real Migros newspaper is the Italian language Azione. The mouthpiece of the Ticino Cooperative, which was founded in 1933, it appears in April 1938 and today has about 100,000 readers. With the change of the business to a cooperative, Duttweiler also plans a German language newspaper. It appears punctually on the national holiday in 1942 and is called Wir Brückenbauer. Wochenblatt des sozialen Kapitals. The publisher is, and remains today, the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (FMC). The Neuchatel Cooperative follows in 1944 with the French language Le Pionnier, but as an existing association journal has the same name, it has to be renamed Construire in 1947.