His parentage seems to have clearly predetermined his path in life. Fritz Molden was born in 1924 in Vienna as the son of Ernst Molden, Chief Editor of the ‘Neuen Freien Presse’ and the Author Paula von Preradoviæ who wrote the text for the Austrian National Anthem in 1947.

“I did not have a chance to sympathise with the Nazis’, Molden once said. After the ‘Anschluss’ in March 1938 his father and older brother were arrested and his mother was violently beaten. The 14 year old Molden initially joined the Catholic Youths and in 1941 was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for attempted treason. Molden was moved to a penal battalion on the Eastern front, survived and eventually joined the Austrian Resistance ‘O5’.

After the war, to begin with, Fritz Molden was secretary to the Austrian Foreign Minister Karl Gruber, soon after he became Foreign Editor at the ‘Presse’, re-established by his father. Between 1948 and 1949 he had a short diplomatic career, among others as Head of the Austrian Information Centre in New York.

After returning to Austria, Fritz Molden returned to the ‘Presse’ and took over the publishing house after the death of his father in 1953. At the end of the 1950´s, Molden in his mid-thirties was at that time probably the largest and most important newspaper publisher in the country. His newspapers temporary held a market share of over 20 percent.

At the beginning of the 1960´s Molden sold his newspapers and pulled out of the press business. Subsequently, he succeeded as a book publisher. After going bankrupt in 1982 he ventured a second attempt again in 1995. Since the sale of this publishing house in 2005, Fritz Molden is in active retirement as a book author.