Hamburger echo

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Hamburger Echo from February 28, 1933

The Hamburger Echo was a social democratic daily that appeared - with interruptions and under different titles - from 1875 to 1966.

It was founded in 1875 as Hamburg-Altonaer Volksblatt under the direction of Wilhelm Hasenclever and Carl Hielmann and was initially published by JHW Dietz , and later by the party's own publishing house, Auerdruck . During the time of the Socialist Law , it had the harmless title of the court newspaper ( 1878–1881) and the citizen newspaper (1881–1887), and from October 1887 it was finally Hamburger Echo. With a circulation of more than 76,000 copies, the Echo was considered the second largest social democratic daily in Germany before the First World War .

Banned under the rule of the National Socialists from 1933 to 1945, the echo flourished again after World War II and reached its highest circulation of 244,000 copies shortly after the currency reform in 1948 . Shortly afterwards, however, the circulation collapsed, not least due to competition from the Hamburger Abendblatt, founded by Axel Springer in 1948, and other newspapers.

After the circulation continued to decline continuously to 25,000 until the early 1960s, the newspaper was to be discontinued at the end of 1963. However, after protests from the Hamburg public, the termination was delayed and on October 1, 1964 the follow-up project Hamburger Abendecho was started as a now independent daily newspaper. The newspaper was offered as a delivery subscription and free sale six times a week (like the Hamburger Abendblatt at that time) from noon - initially under the name: Hamburger Abendecho , then from July 31, 1966 shortened to: Abendecho . With a more left-wing liberal tendency in terms of content - similar to the Hamburger Morgenpost from the same company - it was unable to prevail over the rest of the competition in the long term and finally ceased its publication with the New Year's Eve edition on December 30, 1966.

“Echo Assembly” on June 16, 1933

The starting point was an offer by the Nazi Gauleiter Kaufmann to have the echo reappear under National Socialist leadership. For this, the Reichstag member and Echo editor Gustav Dahrendorf should be won. Dahrendorf let Kaufmann know that such an offer would have to be discussed in a larger circle and received approval. The Hamburg SPD leadership took the opportunity to discuss the political situation for the last time in a larger circle. The state chairman Karl Meitmann had put a four-page paper up for discussion. On June 16, in addition to the two Hamburg SPD members of the Reichstag, Dr. Hans Staudinger and Gustav Dahrendorf and members of the city council Adolph Schönfelder , Heinrich Eisenbarth , Karl Meitmann, Hans Podeyn , Grete Zabe and Walter Schmedemann were present. In addition to a few party employees and Echo employees, there were about 15 district chairmen or their deputies.

At 10.30 p.m., the police and SA broke into the Echo editorial building on Fehlingstrasse and arrested 30 people who were taken to the town hall (police headquarters) and harassed and mistreated. Most of the participants were released in the second half of July.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Hasenclever: Hamburg-Altonaer Volksblatt . ( uni-hamburg.de [accessed June 8, 2019]).
  2. ^ Court newspaper: Tageblatt for Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area . ( uni-hamburg.de [accessed June 8, 2019]).
  3. Citizens' newspaper . ( uni-hamburg.de [accessed June 8, 2019]).
  4. Kirsten Haake: Helma Steinbach 1847-1918 - A champion for trade union, cooperative and party . Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2018, ISBN 978-3-7528-2318-9 , p. 38
  5. ^ Walter Tormin: The history of the SPD in Hamburg 1945 to 1950. Hamburg 1994, p. 220 ff.
  6. The "echo" should not die . In: The time . No. 46 , 1963 ( zeit.de ).
  7. Holger Martens : On the way into the resistance: The "Echo" assembly of the Hamburg SPD 1933 . 1st edition. 2010, p. 25 ( books.google.de )