Adolf Kargel

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Adolf Kargel (born November 20, 1891 in Alexandrow near Lodz ; † May 19, 1985 in Neufahrn near Munich ) was a German journalist , local researcher and numismatist .

origin

Adolf Kargel's ancestors were among the Germans in the Lodz area , who founded numerous cities in what was then Congress Poland from 1815 and played a key role in the industrialization of the region. The Kingdom of Poland was constitutionally part of the Russian Empire at that time . Kargel was born in the city of Alexandrow , which was predominantly inhabited by Germans at the time . He attended a Russian-language primary school and the Łódź German grammar school . Between 1911 and 1913 he completed study visits to Germany, Austria and Russia.

Editor-in-chief

After completing his studies, Kargel first worked in local government. At the end of 1913 he began working as an editor at the Lodzer Zeitung . With the establishment of the reign of Poland in 1915, the Lodzer Zeitung was replaced by the Deutsche Lodzer Zeitung , where Kargel took over the local editorial office. In November 1918 he co-founded the successor newspaper Lodzer Freie Presse . From this in turn the Free Press emerged, where Kargel was editor-in-chief from May 19, 1923 to September 1, 1939 . From 1926 onwards, the newspaper had the title addition “Most popular German daily newspaper in Poland”.

At the same time, Kargel was acting chairman of the journalists' association in Lodz from 1929 to 1933 (Polish: Syndykat Dziennikarzy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w Łodzi ; short: SDL). Polish, German and Jewish journalists belonged to the association. Until April 1933 Kargel enjoyed a high reputation in the Łódź journalists' milieu, despite the increased tensions between the Polish population and the German minority in Poland . Under Kargel's leadership, the Free Press took a democratic line until April 1933. It should be noted here that the Free Press, like its predecessors since 1918 and its successors until 1940, belonged to Libertas Verlagsgesellschaft mbH , a cover company of the German Foreign Office created by Max Winkler . The Free Press, published by Kargel, was 100% owned by the German state .

The difficult political situation of the German minority in Poland after the First World War , due to the loss of previous supremacy and the fear of the hostile minority policy of the Polish government, caused a mass exodus of the German population to Germany, which lasted until about 1926 one million Germans left the western territories of Poland. In order to stop this flow of German people fleeing Poland, German policy already under Gustav Stresemann pursued the goal of convincing the German minorities to stay in Poland, but also to use them as a lever for future border revisions . Against this background, Kargel represented democratically pro-German views in the Free Press in accordance with the requirements of the respective Reich government until the spring of 1933 and established the paper as the official press organ of the German People's Association in Poland .

After Hitler came to power there were violent riots in Poland against members of the German minority, regardless of whether they sympathized with the Nazi regime in Germany or not. The attacks culminated in Lodz on April 9, 1933. On this so-called Black Palm Sunday, an angry crowd demolished German schools, shops and Protestant churches. The hot spots included the editorial rooms and the printing house of the Free Press , whose facilities and machines were severely damaged. After these events, Kargel switched to the line of National Socialist national politics in the Free Press , which led to further tensions with the Polish and Jewish population in the Lodz area.

Both German and Polish propaganda exaggerated the importance and role of the Polish Germans into gigantic proportions. A normalization was sought by both sides by signing a press agreement in 1934. In this, the German and Polish governments undertook to refrain from hostile journalism. Kargel then tried to use a moderate tone in the Free Press , but constantly got into conflict with the German authorities in Berlin and the Polish censorship over the political direction of the newspaper .

Adolf Kargel was described by colleagues as a "lovable, quiet, noble man" who tried to compensate for the political narrowing in the newspaper with extensive local reports from Lodz. The writer Carl Heinrich Schultz , who was later murdered by the National Socialists, recorded in a poem about Adolf Kargel in July 1938 (fragment):

This dear, good Kargel,
would rather be in the coffin , would rather mute
his voice,
because it is not easy to "fight".

And he is silent, like a real wise man,
because
you just have to ignore the guys from the “guide” , that's the
only way to make a name for yourself.

Local editor

After the outbreak of World War II , the printing works were closed on September 1, 1939 and Kargel was arrested by members of the Polish security authorities. Just one day after the German Wehrmacht marched into Lodz without a fight , the Free Press appeared again on September 10, 1939 . On September 24, 1939, the paper was again given the title Deutsche Lodzer Zeitung . Kargel Polish internment did not end until September 25, 1939.

Contrary to what is stated in some publications or newspaper databases, Kargel was no longer editor-in-chief from this point in time and no longer wrote any leading articles . Due to his ambivalence towards the National Socialists, he was deposed as long-time editor-in-chief in the course of the renaming and appointed local editor. According to later statements by his colleagues, he is said to have carried the demotion with "his own dignity" and a certain relief. Incidentally, Kargel was not a member of the NSDAP. He was granted German citizenship in November 1939 , as was basically the case with all so-called ethnic Germans in Lodz and the surrounding area.

On November 12, 1939, the newspaper was renamed Lodzer Zeitung and on January 1, 1940 the spelling was changed to Lodscher Zeitung . After the city of Lodz was renamed Litzmannstadt, the paper was published from April 12, 1940 to January 17, 1945 as the Litzmannstädter Zeitung and from then on bore the subtitle of the NSDAP daily newspaper with the official announcements . During this time Kargel wrote almost exclusively homeland articles on antiquity research and the history of the Lodz region. His last article in the Litzmannstädter Zeitung appeared on January 16, 1945 and dealt with the establishment of the Lodz Cloth Makers' Guild in 1825.

One of his main topics was the "Influence of political borders on the development of settlements and cultural landscapes". On the one hand, he always referred to the “cultures united in the smallest of spaces” (Russians, Germans, Poles, Jews). On the other hand, in these depictions he exaggerated the historical significance of Germanness , which clearly corresponded to the National Socialist line of the Litzmannstädter Zeitung . Some of his studies also appeared in the East German Observer . In 1942, together with the church historian Eduard Kneifel , Kargel published the anthology Deutschtum im Aufbruch - Vom Volkstumskampf der Germans in eastern Wartheland , which was on the list of literature to be segregated after the Second World War .

numismatist

After the Germans had fled and were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe , Kargel settled in Hanover . In August 1946 he was one of the leading founding members of the Aid Committee of Evangelical Lutheran Germans from Poland . The association is an institution of the EKD and has been publishing the magazine Weg und Ziel since October 1949 , the first managing director of which was Adolf Kargel. By January 1970 he edited the newsletter and published many articles himself. As a displaced person , he also participated in the founding of the country team Weichsel-Warthe and worked from 1951 to 1957 as spokesman for the Central Poland Home District Committee.

In the post-war period, Kargel mainly dealt with coin science , which he had already devoted himself to in his home country. He was a member of the Numismatic Society in Hanover and author of numerous reports and expert reports on coins and archaeological finds in various specialist journals .

Adolf Kargel died in Neufahrn at the age of 93 .

Works (selection)

  • German round table games, festive customs and children's games from Kongeßpolen. Publishing house of the Poznan Historical Society, Poznan 1923.
  • Germanism on the move. Hirzel, Leipzig 1942.
  • Tell coins. A thousand years of German-Slavic links in numismatics. Gieseking, Bielefeld 1971
  • Lodz, the city of the meeting of nations in the course of history. Liebig, Cologne 1978.
  • Alexandrov. A center of the Germans in the industrial area of ​​Lodz. Origin and history. Beilstein, Mönchengladbach 1980.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Emil Nasarski: The Lodzer German Gymnasium. In the field of tension between fate and inheritance, 1906–1981. Westkreuz-Verlag, 1981, p. 175.
  2. ↑ Title information Freie Presse magazine database , accessed on February 20, 2020.
  3. ^ Peter Emil Nasarski: The Lodzer German Gymnasium. In the field of tension between fate and inheritance, 1906–1981. Westkreuz-Verlag, 1981, p. 175.
  4. ↑ Lucjan Dobroszycki: Reptile Journalism. The Official Polish-Language Press under the Nazis, 1939-1945. Yale University Press, 1994, p. 12.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Hensel: Poles, Germans and Jews in Lodz 1820-1939. A difficult neighborhood. Fiber, 1999, 315-322.
  6. ^ Association of German Minorities in Europe (ed.): Ethnopolitischer Almanach. Volume 2. Wilhelm Braumüller, 1931, p. 156.
  7. ↑ Beata Dorota Lake Mountain: The German minority press in Poland 1918-1939 and its Polish and Jewish image. Peter Lang, 2010, p. 156.
  8. ^ Helga Wermuth: Max Winkler - A helper of state press policy in the Weimar Republic. Dissertation. Munich 1975. p. 50 f.
  9. ↑ Monika Kucner: German press landscape in the interwar period in Lodz. Folia Germanica 5. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, 2009, pp. 287-288.
  10. ↑ Mark Mazower: Hitler's Empire: Europe under the Rule of National Socialism. CH Beck, 2009, p. 52.
  11. ↑ Beata Dorota Lake Mountain: The German minority press in Poland 1918-1939 and its Polish and Jewish image. Peter Lang, 2010, p. 156.
  12. ^ Thomas Urban: From Krakow to Gdansk. A journey through German-Polish history. CH Beck, 2004, p. 171 f.
  13. ^ Jörg Riecke, Britt-Marie Schuster: German-language newspapers in Central and Eastern Europe. Linguistic form, historical embedding and cultural traditions. Weidler Buchverlag, 2005, p. 221.
  14. ^ Oskar Kossmann: The Germans in Poland since the Reformation. Marburg 1978, p. 344.
  15. ↑ Monika Kucner: German press landscape in the interwar period in Lodz. Folia Germanica 5. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, 2009, p. 292.
  16. ^ Jörg Riecke, Britt-Marie Schuster: German-language newspapers in Central and Eastern Europe. Linguistic form, historical embedding and cultural traditions. Weidler Buchverlag, 2005, p. 213 f.
  17. ^ Hans Preuschoff: Journalist in the Third Reich . Kreisgemeinschaft Braunsberg (Ermland) e. V., accessed on February 19, 2020.
  18. ↑ Otto Heike: Life in the German-Polish field of tension. Memories and insights from a German journalist from Lodz. Hobbing, 1989, p. 84.
  19. ^ Carl Heinrich Schultz: Misunderstood heroism. Poem. In: Ernst Heiter (Hrsg.): The German guide . Volume 19, July 3, 1938, p. 8.
  20. ^ Jörg Riecke, Britt-Marie Schuster: German-language newspapers in Central and Eastern Europe. Linguistic form, historical embedding and cultural traditions. Weidler Buchverlag, 2005, p. 221.
  21. ↑ Kurt Pfeiffer: 25 years of ethnic struggle. In: Litzmannstädter Zeitung , November 28, 1943, pp. 1–2.
  22. ^ Hans Preuschoff: Journalist in the Third Reich . Kreisgemeinschaft Braunsberg (Ermland) e. V., accessed on February 19, 2020.
  23. ↑ Otto Heike: Life in the German-Polish field of tension. Memories and insights from a German journalist from Lodz. Hobbing, 1989, pp. 84 f.
  24. ^ Eduard Kneifel: The Evangelical Church in Wartheland East (Lodz) - its structure and its confrontation with National Socialism 1939-1945. Vierkirchen 1976, p. 23f.
  25. ↑ Litzmannstädter Zeitung of January 16, 1945, p. 3. University Library in Łódź, accessed on February 20, 2020.
  26. ^ Adolf Kargel, Eduard Kneifel: Deutschtum im Aufbruch. Hirzel, Leipzig 1942.
  27. ^ Ministry for National Education of the German Democratic Republic (ed.): List of the literature to be sorted out. Third addendum. VEB Deutscher Zentralverlag Berlin, 1953, entry 788.
  28. ↑ Relief Committee of evangl. Lutheran Germans from Poland Foundation German culture in Eastern Europe, accessed on February 20 2020th
  29. ↑ Information sheet Weg und Ziel Auxiliary Committee of Evangelical Lutheran Germans from Poland e. V., accessed on February 20, 2020.
  30. ↑ Landsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe: Chronicle of the Landsmannschaft Weichsel-Warthe - 70 years of activities for the Germans from the Posener Land, central Poland with the center of Lodz, Volhynia and Galicia as a bridge of understanding . Wiesbaden 2019.
  31. ^ Hans Preuschoff: Journalist in the Third Reich . Kreisgemeinschaft Braunsberg (Ermland) e. V., accessed on February 19, 2020.
  32. ^ Historical Commission to Berlin (ed.): Yearbook for the history of Central and Eastern Germany . Walter de Gruyter, 1971, p. 481.
  33. ↑ Death Adolf Kargel Doolia, accessed on February 19 2020th
personal data
SURNAME Kargel, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, local researcher and numismatist
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Alexandrov
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1985
Place of death Neufahrn