Two thousand and one

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Zweiausendeins is a German publishing , music and book retailing company that was founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1969 and has been based in Leipzig since July 2011, with direct sales via mail order and in cooperation with local bookshops. From 1974 to 2016 the company also ran its own shops in Germany. The range also includes media from other publishers as well as books and CDs from abroad.

History of the company

Range of the Frankfurt branch (2012)

Founding years

The company, which was founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1969 by Lutz Reinecke , married Kroth, and Walter Treumann, who was responsible for finances , initially sold curios and sold off reduced-price remaining editions of books and records . Soon thereafter, reprints of out-of-print books and magazines began with success. Siegfried Unseld became aware of the young bookseller Reinecke in the 1960s and entrusted him with the Suhrkamp sales. In 1968, during the Frankfurt Book Fair, the APO held a demonstration against the award of the Peace Prize of the German book trade to Léopold Sédar Senghor . Reinecke spontaneously left the Suhrkamp book stand, took part in the demonstration and was then dismissed by Unseld. At a later encounter with Unseld, Reinecke admitted that he would have acted "the same".

Reinecke opened his own publishing house with partners in 1969 and named it after the cult film 2001: A Space Odyssey . Under the management of the third partner Wolfgang Müller (Music Department), the company expanded its offering to include records.

Program and advertising

Thanks to its targeted and unusual selection of programs and the unconventional style of addressing customers, the company has become an important publisher of the 1968 generation . "The publishing house of Lutz Reinecke and Walter Treumann became a powerhouse of alternative culture , which put the youth of the republic deep into the flat country under subcultural power." The most important marketing medium was the small-format booklet sent out every four to eight weeks under the title Merkheft Catalog listing new items and a large part of the available backlist , but not covering the entire available range. The in-house organ “Merkheft”, which was written anonymously for decades by the “guestwriter” Bertel Schmitt in the name of the company's founder Reinecke or Kroth, became a cult object and model for many imitators. The trademark was the editorial, which always began with “Guten Tag”, as well as the extremely short final column by Annemarie Susemihl (1905–1997), who later also worked as a spokesperson for a Peter and Wolf CD. For a long time, the “Merkheft” was printed on unusually thin paper, in black and white and in the conservative fonts Times New Roman and Univers 67 . The aggressive pricing policy, with special offers that are often extremely cheap, also contributed to economic success.

The range of books was later expanded to include very inexpensive new editions licensed by other publishers and new publications published by the author, including editions of forgotten classics such as B. Boris Vian and title with political and socially critical issues. After Lutz Reinecke married Eva Kroth, whose name he took on, the spectrum expanded to include ecological and spiritual issues. The small-format book blocks with complete magazine reprints ( course book , accents ) were produced by Franz Greno . He later parted ways with two thousand and one in order to found his own publishing house; But two thousand and one continued to publish some of the books he had designed.

distribution

The newly opened two-thousand-one store in the Volkshaus in Leipzig (2018)

For a long time the publisher did not sell through bookstores, but only directly by mail order and later in its own stores. The first shop opened in 1974 at Eschersheimer Landstrasse 5-7 in Frankfurt am Main. In 1979 it moved to Kornmarkt 14 in the Hauptwache car park . Branches in Berlin, Freiburg, Hamburg and Mannheim followed; During the company's heyday in the mid-1990s, there were 14 stores across Germany with a total of over 200 employees. Only since 2006 have there been “partner shops” in selected bookshops, mostly in university towns. The turnover in 2005 was around 40 million euros, the number of employees around 150. The company put the number of mail order customers at around one million at its peak. Since there are no two-thousand-one stores in Switzerland or Austria, the publishing program can also be ordered through traditional bookstores.

Literature, music and film

To the own book series belonged z. B. “ Haidnian antiquities ”, in which Hans-Michael Bock published forgotten novels of the 18th and 19th centuries under the motto “ Arno Schmidt's favorite books ”. In addition, Zweiausendeins also published books e.g. B. the comic artist Robert Crumb , court reports by Peggy Parnass , texts by Bob Dylan , translations by Harry Rowohlt , the autobiography of Woody Guthrie , the collected works of Eckhard Henscheid and other works of the " New Frankfurt School " ( FW Bernstein , Robert Gernhardt , FK Waechter ). Two thousand and one also distributed politically important documentaries such as the " Germany Reports of the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( Sopade ) 1934–1940" and published art volumes and books on film and photography.

From 1975 to 1980, from 1975 to 1980, Zweiausendeins exclusively sold the books of the März Verlag . From 2004 the titles of the publishing house Rogner & Bernhard were available exclusively for two thousand and one until its takeover by Kein & Aber in 2015. The publications of Haffmans Verlag , including titles such as the annual raven calendar , have appeared exclusively at two thousand and one since 2002. The records of the label Mood Records , the classical titles of the Dutch label Brilliant Classics and the world music label Network Medien were sold in Germany for a long time exclusively over two thousand and one.

In addition to the publishing house and book distribution, the extensive CD, vinyl and DVD range is still the company's second mainstay. In particular, the two thousand and one edition with over 650 available film titles on DVD has been expanded significantly in recent years.

Takeover by the Kölmel brothers and economic crisis

The holding company MK Medien Beteiligungs GmbH of the Kinowelt founders and brothers Michael Kölmel and Rainer Kölmel from Leipzig took over two thousand and one in 2006 for an undisclosed purchase price. At this point in time, the company had already got into economic difficulties and had to close its own logistics department. Company founder Lutz Kroth said goodbye to the readers in the January 2007 booklet and declared that he would retire after 37 years. Till Tolkemitt took over from Lutz Kroth as managing director. As a result, attempts were made to increase sales by expanding the Internet presence and a shop-in-shop system in cooperation with local booksellers. At the end of 2009, the sales network comprised 14 of its own stores and 35 such “partner shops”.

Nevertheless, sales continued to decline, also due to the crisis in the CD market. Two thousand and one made seven-figure losses per year and was only kept alive by additional funds from the owner Michael Kölmel. Other well-known employees left: after exactly forty years with the company, guestwriter Bertel Schmitt ended his work in 2009 after writing the anniversary memo. Managing Director Till Tolkemitt left the company on October 1, 2009 to found the Haffmans & Tolkemitt publishing house in Berlin. Wolfgang Müller, the last remaining member of the two thousand and one founder trio Reinecke-Treumann-Müller and responsible for the music division, ended his work at two thousand and one on March 31, 2010. Tolkemitt was first followed by Hubert Snehotta and then at the end of 2009 Ralph Koch as managing director and Bianca Krippendorf as managing director, who until then had been the legal advisor of MK Medien and assistant to Michael Kölmel. Andreas Kalski followed Ralph Koch as managing director. In order to reduce costs, the publishing and marketing location in Hamburg was given up at the beginning of 2010 and administration was concentrated in Frankfurt. At the beginning of June 2010, the management and works council agreed on a reorganization concept to avert the impending insolvency, which included the dismissal of 51 of the 116 employees and the abandonment of customer service.

In 2011, Zweiausendeins moved its headquarters from Frankfurt am Main to Leipzig. Since February 2017, the production and distribution of the former two-thousand-one customer catalog “Merkheft” has been with the Ganske publishing group . The booklet is published by Frölich & Kaufmann GmbH, which belongs to Ganske and whose managing directors are Andreas Kaufmann and Thomas Ganske. For this purpose, the business assets of the Merkhefts were transferred from the Zweiausendeins Versand-Dienst GmbH to the Merkheft GmbH, which was newly founded in Berlin. After the transfer, the GmbH was dissolved again. Initially, Bianca Krippendorf was the managing director, then Andreas Kaufmann was managing director.

In the course of 2017, the business operations of the Zweiausendeins Versand-Dienst GmbH were transferred to the new Zweiausendeins GmbH & Co. KG, whose personally liable company is the Kinowelt Einzelhandels GmbH. Peter Deisinger is the managing director. Since October 2017, the Leipzig publishing group Seemann Henschel has belonged to two thousand and one with the traditional publishers EA Seemann, Henschel and Edition Leipzig .

End and restart of branch operations

The Frankfurt Zweiausendeins store closed on March 23, 2017.

In April 2012, Zweiausendeins announced that it would close its stores and concentrate on the mail order business. Two thousand and one offered investors to take over the stores in the franchise system via the notebook. The stores for which no franchisees could be found were closed until 2016. The only two-thousand-one store in Frankfurt am Main that has been franchised since 2013 and thus the last remaining one closed on March 23, 2017. There are currently 20 (as of May 2020) so-called two-thousand-one collaborations in local bookstores that carry a selection of the range as well as order all items.

In October 2018, Zweiausendeins opened its own shop again in the Volkshaus in Leipzig.

literature

radio

  • Only with us - How the counterculture laid two thousand and one. Radio-Feature , Germany, 54:07 min., 2019, script and direction: Oliver Kobold, Jochen Wobser, production: SWR2 , series: Feature am Sonntag , first broadcast: March 10, 2019, audio file.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merkheft 245, July 2011.
  2. ↑ a b Peter Unfried : I sit on the bank of a river and wait. In: the daily newspaper , December 23, 2006, interview with Lutz Kroth .
  3. ^ Mathias Broeckers : Two thousand and one. The shipping. 40 years later. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-86150-999-8 , p. 8 u. 67.
  4. ^ Willi Winkler : Three freshness as publishers. In: Die Zeit , October 14, 1994.
  5. ^ A b Hans Riebsamen: Two thousand thousand. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 9, 2017, p. 9.
  6. ↑ Google search query: "Bertel Schmitt". Retrieved September 10, 2009 .
  7. ↑ Catalog: Films. In: Zweiausendeins exclusive, accessed on October 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ Thorsten Winter: Two thousand and one: Growing in the niche instead of reducing costs. In: FAZ , September 14, 2006.
  9. ↑ Two thousand and one - 40 years later. “We're celebrating: Two thousand and one is 40!” Mathias Bröckers wrote down our story. In: Zweiausendeins , February 2009, accessed on October 17, 2019.
  10. ↑ a b TW: Two thousand and one: move to Mainhattan. In: Börsenblatt , December 11, 2009.
  11. ↑ Thorsten Winter: Mail Order: Two thousand and one sees the "black zero". ( Memento from May 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). In: FAZ , February 12, 2008.
  12. ↑ Works council claim for severance pay rejected. Day of the decision for two thousand and one. In: Buchreport , June 4, 2010.
  13. ↑ TW: Tolkemitt and Haffmans go into business for themselves. In: Börsenblatt , October 8, 2009.
  14. ↑ Agenda two thousand and one. Book and media retailer adopts restructuring plan. ( Memento from July 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Buchreport , June 9, 2010.
  15. ↑ Imprint. In: Frölich & Kaufmann Verlag und Versand GmbH, accessed on October 17, 2019.
  16. ^ Kinowelt retail GmbH, Leipzig. Retrieved September 7, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Annual review 2017: Topics in October. In: Buchreport , December 21, 2017.
  18. ↑ Two thousand and one in Frankfurt closes. In: Buchreport , January 6, 2017.
  19. ↑ Willi Winkler : Two thousand and one closes stores. Farewell to the cultural revolution. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 28, 2012.
  20. ↑ Franziska Gerlach: The last one turns off the light. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 20, 2013.
  21. ↑ Volker Albers: Culture dealer two thousand and one: The branch in the Colonnaden is also closing. ( Memento of April 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: Hamburger Abendblatt , April 30, 2013.
  22. ↑ Jan Willmroth: The Zeitgeist wins. The last two thousand and one store will close in a few weeks. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 26, 2017, p. 18.
  23. ↑ Our shop, our partnerships. In: Zweiausendeins , accessed on May 25, 2020.
  24. ↑ Two thousand and one bookstore opens in Leipzig / “We're looking ahead again!” In: Börsenblatt , accessed on October 17, 2019.