Merkur's attitude is influenced by offbeat viewpoints: it delicately pokes fun at the earnestness and metaphysical wonder that determines most of Germany's public debates. As the mission statement puts it: "The good old enlightenment values of criticism, scepticism and sarcasm are employed against obtuseness and utopianism." In the world of Merkur, the true intellectual is the daring outsider, not a commentator on current affairs. One may wonder just how this is possible at a time when being an outsider is considered de rigueur by the mainstream.

Above all, the magazine is independent, thanks to the support of a charitable foundation set up by its publisher, Klett Cotta. So it has no need to worry about increasing the circulation (about 5,000 a month). This also means that Merkur is not an organ of a particular world view, even though there is a distinctly contrarian flavour to it. 

In short, the endeavour is deliberately anachronistic. Merkur is not concerned with pleasing anyone, either in form or content. There are no pictures, the sparse layout is always the same. Add to this the fact that it can be difficult to get hold of and that online subscription was introduced only about a year ago, and you have a niche product. 

"Every subject can appear on our pages," the editors write, "as long as it fulfills three conditions: intellectually original but not necessarily scholarly, relevant for educated readers but not pandering to any specific persuasion/not tied to a particular viewpoint, and presented in elegant essayistic form without academic fluff." 

Perhaps it was this elitism that made it such a desirable place in which to be published — for some, that is. Many influential German intellectuals wouldn't have been seen dead with an issue in the pockets of their corduroy jackets. They opposed the particular brand of aestheticism that informed the magazine, preferring instead the left-leaning Kursbuch. 

Over the past 20 or so years intellectuals from Jean Améry and Jean-François Lyotard to George Weidenfeld have written for Merkur. The last double issue was devoted to the topic of outsiders — "why everyone tries to be a nonconformist and only few succeed" — which could be read as a mission statement (although the editors would probably deny that). Some sneered that an ageing gang of collaborators had come together for one last time to paint themselves as the avant-garde, while merely rehashing the arguments of the past.

 Whatever they may say about Merkur, though, it provides an alternative to mediocrity: the idea of an intellectual stance without ever serving it to you on a plate.