Albert Langen

Albert Langen (Photo by Nicola Perscheid )

Albert Langen (born July 8, 1869 in Antwerp , † April 30, 1909 in Munich ) was a German publisher and the founder of the satirical magazine Simplicissimus .

Life

The early years

Albert Langen was, after Martha and Martin, the third of four children of the industrialist Friedrich Albert Langen and his wife Ida Goeters . After the death of grandfather Johann Jakob Langen, the family moved from Antwerp to Cologne to Jacordenstrasse 5, where Albert Langen spent his childhood and youth.

Early reading

Here his sister Elsbeth was born. After a broken commercial apprenticeship, Langen moved to Paris in 1890 to train as a painter. He soon associated with writers (including Henry Becque , Abel Hermant , Paul Hervieu , Octave Mirbeau , Émile Zola ) and artists (the draftsman Théophile Alexandre Steinlen , one of the main illustrators of Gil Blas Illustré , became his lifelong friend). He met Julius Rudolph Wilhelm Petersen, who grew up in Copenhagen and who had lived in Paris since 1890 and called himself Willy Gretor . Gretor is described as a brilliant adventurer and impostor, painter, poet, picture forger and art dealer. Frank Wedekind served him as his secretary for a while. In November 1898 Wedekind began work on the play The Marquis of Keith , with Gretor now serving him - as a prototype for the Marquis. Gretor became Langen's mentor, Langen Gretor's adlatus. Langen took over Gretor's pompous apartment on Boulevard Malesherbes, including the valuable furniture and an extensive collection of pictures (which, as contemporary witnesses believed, contained a few pieces of contestable authenticity). Encouraged by Gretor, Langen temporarily considered opening an art shop. The decisive factor, however (through Gretor's mediation), was the encounter with the writer Knut Hamsun , whose novel Mysteries had previously been rejected by S. Fischer Verlag . Langen was so enthusiastic about the already available German translation of the work (by Marie von Borch ) that he offered Samuel Fischer a printing allowance. When this failed, Langen founded a publishing house to bring out the book himself. In 1894, Hamsun's Mysteries was published as the first title in Albert Langen's Buch & Kunst-Verlag . He confidently announced the reason for his publishing house in the advertising section of the Börsenblatt for the German book trade on December 6 (dated December 1), 1893. The place of publication was his apartment, Paris, 112 Boulevard Malesherbes.

In the following year the publishing house first moved to Leipzig and soon afterwards to Munich. In addition to Scandinavian authors ( Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson , Georg Brandes , Sven Lange), Langen has now expanded its program to include contemporary French and German literature. Frank Wedekind's Der Erdgeist (1895) was published as the first title by a German writer . The publisher's paperback books achieved special market recognition thanks to their bindings designed by (initially French, but soon also German) artists such as Jules Chéret , Théophile Alexandre Steinlen , and especially Thomas Theodor Heine .

1896-1909

Dagny Bjørnson Langen

In 1896 Langen married Dagny Bjørnson , the youngest daughter of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. On April 4 of the same year the first issue of the illustrated weekly Simplicissimus was published by Albert Langen. Some French newspapers such as Gil Blas illustré and Le Rire had served as models. The weekly was soon confiscated several times because of its critical comments and received temporary sales bans in Germany - but also in Austria.

Korfiz Holm , who came from Riga , joined Langenschen Verlag in 1896. In the following years Langen was able to publish works by Heinrich Mann , Henrik Ibsen , Marcel Prévost and Verner von Heidenstam in his house. In 1897 the publishing house started with the title Are you sleeping, mother? by Jakob Wassermann , the low-cost series Little library long , specifically for the railway station bookstores was conceived. For a while, Thomas Mann also edited manuscripts for the Simplicissimus . The first publisher's catalog appeared in 1898. An artfully designed octave volume with the proud balance of the first five years: 65 books by authors of German, French, Scandinavian, Russian and Dutch origin. Things were also looking up in private: on June 17, 1897, their son Arne was born, and on October 9, 1898, their son Bjørnstjerne Albert was born.

The number 31 of the 3rd year of Simplicissimus , the so-called Palestine number , led to an indictment of libel against two authors of the magazine, Thomas Theodor Heine (he had drawn the title page) and Frank Wedekind (he came from him under the pseudonym Hieronymos printed poem In the Holy Land ), and forced Langen (he was the editor in charge) to flee to Switzerland in the fall of 1898. Together with his family he moved to Paris in 1899, where they moved into a stately apartment at 187 rue de la Pompe. Langen now had to manage the publishing house and Simplicissimus from a distance. Korfiz Holm, who had received power of attorney , represented him in Munich in some matters . At summit conferences in Austria, Switzerland, Paris and Aulestad , Norway, the estate of his in-laws, Langen met his closest colleagues for discussions in good company. And Langen's wife Dagny repeatedly traveled to Germany to discuss publishing problems. It was not until 1903, after four and a half years in exile, that Langen was pardoned by King George of Saxony , against payment of a "note amount" of 20,000 marks. After Langen's return to Munich, the Simplicissimus began, among other things, to act against the Bavarian center and thus drew the displeasure of the Bavarian state parliament.

Another publisher's catalog appeared in 1904. In the meantime the publisher had published 389 works by 117 authors. The highest number of copies was achieved by About Our Power by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Ludwig Thoma became the publisher's top-selling German author. On April 1, 1906, the Simplicissimus was converted into a GmbH , a consequence of the palace revolution of its employees, who wanted to share in the profits that the Simplicissimus brought in . Langen had indeed the Simplicissimus thus lost , but gained time for other projects. At the beginning of 1907, the first issue of March appeared , a bi-monthly publication for German culture . Edited by Ludwig Thoma , Hermann Hesse , Albert Langen and Kurt Aram (d. I. Hans Fischer). There were also upheavals in Langen's marriage: In February 1906 the couple officially separated (not divorced). Albert Langen had (since 1903) a new life partner: Josephine Rensch . His wife Dagny stayed in Paris with their two children. She turned to the French draftsman Paul Iribe . Funded by Dagny Bjørnson-Langen, Iribe published the illustrated magazine Le Témoin .

Albert Langen in the picture book Hermann Hesses from 1960

Albert Langen died on April 30, 1909 of an otitis media that had been delayed . He had contracted the infection when, on April 1st, in an open car, he followed the Zeppelin airship Z 1, which had carried strong winds far beyond Munich, to the landing site. On May 4th he was buried in the family crypt of his parents in Cologne's Melaten cemetery (leveled today). In his will, Albert Langen had appointed four curators and long-term employees (Otto Friedrich, Reinhold Geheeb , August Gommel and Korfiz Holm) for the publisher. They took over the company (the sons of Langen were underage and were represented by their uncle Martin Langen ) and acquired it in 1918. In the 1920s, the Bauhaus books (ed .: Walter Gropius and Lászlo Moholy-Nagy ) were published by Langen Verlag. In 1931 the publishing house entered into an interest group with Georg Müller Verlag and merged with them the following year to form Langen Müller Verlag .

Special merits

Thomas Theodor Heine: The Munich publisher Albert Langen in the garden , 1905, municipal gallery in the Lenbachhaus

One of the publisher's outstanding achievements was the endeavor to equip his company's publications with modern book design. Thomas Theodor Heine and Bruno Paul were among his most important book artists (for the cover and dust jacket design, for vignettes and illustrations), who both worked very differently. While the easy-to-move style of drawing was characteristic of Heine, Paul combined strong outlines with the arrangement of surfaces and colors. Both artists were clearly influenced by Art Nouveau .

Ferdinand von Reznicek , Eduard Thöny and the Norwegian Olaf Gulbransson , who was hired as a permanent employee of the company in 1902 and with his minimalist drawing style, soon became just as indispensable for simplicissimus as Heine, were other illustrators at Langen-Verlag . In 1909 it was thanks to Langen to win the poster artist and genre painter Brynolf Wennerberg for the Simplicissimus .

Albert Langen was a cultural publisher who not only founded his company out of economic considerations, but also linked his work with a cultural and political mandate. His strongest competitor, another so-called cultural publisher of the time, was Samuel Fischer, as he had also chosen authors of the "modern" as a program focus. Many writers (including Henrik Ibsen , Jakob Wassermann and Ludwig Thoma ) published briefly with Langen, but soon returned to S. Fischer. Langen was never able to catch up with the lead of S. Fischer-Verlag, which was founded in 1886.

literature

• Helga Abret: Albert Langen. A European publisher. Langen Müller, Munich 1993.
• Helga Abret, Aldo Keel: The libel affair of the "Simplicissimus" publisher Albert Langen. Letters and documents on exile and pardon 1898–1903. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Bern / New York 1985, ISBN 3-8204-8877-4 .
• Helga Abret, Aldo Keel: The copy book Korfiz Holms (1899-1903). A contribution to the history of Albert Langen Verlag and “Simplicissimus”. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1989.
• Helga Abret, Aldo Keel: In the sign of the Simplicissimus. Correspondence between Albert Langen and Dagny Björnson (1895–1909). Droemer Knaur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-426-01690-7 .
• Ernestine Koch:  Langen, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 574 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Andreas Pöllinger: The correspondence between Ludwig Thoma and Albert Langen. 1899-1908. (Dissertation, University of Regensburg) Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-631-45614-X .
• Detlef Seydel: Damn it! Dear Josephine, I love you. Albert Langen and Josephine Rensch - newly found testimonies. Allitera Verlag (edition monacensia), Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86906-653-0 .

Web links

Commons : Albert Langen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fritz Strich (ed.): Frank Wedekind. Collected letters. 1st volume. Georg Müller, Munich 1924, p. 354 f.
2. ↑ Arthur Holitscher. Life story of a rebel. S. Fischer, Berlin 1924, p. 122.
3. ↑ Helga Abret: Albert Langen. A European publisher. Langen Müller, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7844-2459-7 , pp. 440-444.