Also orchestrated an unlikely truce with archrival Leo Kirch (see) last year to create a digital pay TV station.

FORBES: Europe

And what better time than in the week when Holzmann succumbed and Leo Kirch at last threw in the towel?

ECONOMIST: German companies

Murdoch has found opportunity in the troubles of his fellow media mogul Leo Kirch, whose empire is staggering under the weight of its enormous debt.

FORBES: Magazine Article

After toying with an investment in the television operations of Leo Kirch, a German media mogul, and with Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest, Mr Murdoch wooed Canal Plus last year.

ECONOMIST: European television

And more upheavals in the media industry look probable, now that creditors are piling the pressure on Leo Kirch, a Bavarian media baron whose empire is buckling under huge debts.

ECONOMIST: Germany's competition watchdog is busier than ever

Complicating the picture is that Leo Kirch, based in Munich, is a supporter of the conservative Bavarian politician Edmund Stoiber, who is set to challenge Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in September's national elections.

FORBES: Murdoch Meets Resistance In Germany

And the next day a Munich court ruled that Deutsche and Rolf Breuer, Mr Ackermann's predecessor, who now chairs the bank's supervisory board, were liable to pay damages to Leo Kirch, a media mogul whose empire crumbled last year.

ECONOMIST: There is no quick way out of the quagmire for Germany's banks