Hey Heike,
publishRecursive< is set to <code>asynchronous: true</code> by default.
You can see the configuration at /.magnolia/admincentral#app:resources:edit;/dam-app-jcr/decorations/dam-assets-app/apps/dam.subApps.yaml:edit
You should be able to configure the same for the publish action as well.
Hope this helps,
Roman