Anton Zischka

Anton Zischka 1983

Anton Emmerich Zischka (von Trochnov) (born September 14, 1904 in Vienna ; † May 31, 1997 in Pollença , Spain ) was an Austrian journalist and one of the most successful non-fiction authors in the Weimar Republic , the Third Reich and the Federal Republic of Germany . He also wrote under the pseudonyms Rupert Donkan , Thomas Daring , Darius Plecha and Antal Sorba . His around 40 books, most of which present technical and economic contexts in popular science, have been translated into 18 languages ​​to date.

Life

The multilingual Zischka was editor of the Neue Freie Presse from 1924 to 1929 , from 1930 in Paris magazine correspondent for various European and American newspapers and reported from almost every continent. The great economic success as a journalist gave him, among other things, the opportunity to do international reporting with his own aircraft on site. His reports on the floods in China in 1931, for example, were printed in many major European newspapers and made him extremely popular. After the success of his first book “Le Monde en Folie” from 1933, Zischka remained a freelance writer and lived with his Dutch wife from 1935 until his death in 1997 on his finca in Cala San Vicente on Mallorca. Parts of Zischka's extensive private archive are now kept in the Deutsches Museum in Munich , and a detailed scientific analysis is still pending. During his work he came into contact with numerous prominent personalities, such as Ibn Saud , Chiang Kai-shek , Josef Stalin , Thomas Alva Edison , Carl Bosch and Hermann Staudinger .

Travel journalism and industry reports

While foreign travel became more difficult for Germans at the beginning of the 1930s, Zischka's travel reports and industrial reports (Zischka worked under a pseudonym in the notorious Belgian coal fields and Romanian oil fields) conveyed the impression of cosmopolitanism and authenticity directly from the place of the event and were not only sold well in Germany . However, his free handling of third-party intellectual property brought him repeated allegations of plagiarism and led to a break with his French publisher Payot as early as the 1930s.

Success as a non-fiction author, in the “Third Reich” and internationally

The Leipzig Goldmann Verlag owed its rise in the 1930s largely to the success of and with Zischka's bestsellers. In contrast to the novelist Karl Aloys Schenzinger , who lives in Germany, another “(raw material) bestseller of the 3rd Reich”, Zischka stayed in Spain and in the non-fiction format and was also very successful as a writer internationally. Zischka, who was not undisputed among the Nazi grandees, looked for and found a sponsor in the Nazi regime in Fritz Todt . Among other things, this introduced "Wissenschaft breaks Monopole" (from 1936) as a textbook or required reading in secondary schools, but the book was also translated and sold into 18 languages. Zischka explains wars and armed conflicts as "Oil War", which appeared in 1939 as well Dispute over (unevenly distributed) land and raw materials. In contrast, he presented technical developments from Germany such as coal liquefaction or the synthesis of ammonia ( Haber-Bosch process ) as possible global peacemakers. In addition, the creative “ national community ” became the largest and most important “synthesis ” of British and American “tough capitalism” ”Juxtaposed with a“ new era ”. In contrast to “American monopoly capitalism ”, this proceeds in a peace-loving “organic” and “systematic” focus on the “ common good ” and willingly share its technical achievements with others. An English-oriented democratic public, a society determined by the mass media and party-political disputes, he opposes an organic synthesis, his ideal of a community led authoritatively on the basis of a broad, cross-party mass movement and technocratic efficiency criteria.

In doing so, Zischka served not only widespread German longings at the time with a deeply German pair of opposites, but not primarily under the auspices of the Nazi regime. He conveyed a comparatively peaceful, technocratic image of the “ Third Reich ” abroad before the war. However, he had been a member of the NSDAP as well as the foreign organization of the German Labor Front since 1940 , had trained the Condor Legion stationed on Mallorca and had provided secret reports to German government agencies informed the political situation in Spain. In addition, he did not shy away from publishing anti-Semitic propaganda and claimed, for example, that the “Jewish financial world” wanted to “destroy” the German economy. After the war, after an interim writing ban in Franco's Spain, Zischka succeeded in positioning himself (again) on the German book market as an apolitical supporter of a technocracy , committed to peace .

Resumption of writing after 1945

Due to an Allied repatriation order, Zischka was temporarily interned in Franco's Spain after 1945 and was only able to gradually gain a foothold again from 1948 (initially under a pseudonym) and continue to remain legally in Spain. In addition to a large number of books published by Bertelsmann Verlag , Zischka also became known, especially in Germany, through lectures to the public. In addition to energy issues, he also dealt with the role of the dollar in the world economy and here again contrasted alleged British and American commerce and warmongering with a peace power with a not German, but European connotation.

In many of his books, Zischka advocated sustainable economic development and the industrialization of the Third World . In his works struggle for survival. The human right to energy and the all-driving force. He propagated world history of energy , among other things, the necessity of the massive use of nuclear energy for worldwide energy production . He stuck to this even after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster . In his book Chernobyl - no accident. He warned the Soviet economy and the mistakes of the West of the impending nuclear phase-out .

In the Soviet occupation zone , Zishka's writings became Bread for Two Billion People (1940), England's alliances. 6 centuries of British wars with foreign weapons (1940), Victory of Labor (1940), Italy in the World (1941) and the inventor who appeared in Berlin at Eher break the blockade (1944) put on the list of literature to be discarded. In the German Democratic Republic , this list was followed by his 5000 years of clothing worries (1943).

reception

Zischka's enormous success as a non-fiction author is not only due to a captivating writing style and the facts researched with great personal commitment. He also succeeded in identifying key issues and trends (for example energy supply ) at an early stage and presenting them with reports from global hotspots in a provocative way that is understandable for broad circles. His journalistic approach has found very different successors, just like his arguments have an impact in broad areas of the German political spectrum. An example of this is the inclusion of Zishka's paradigms of dollar imperialism in the area of ​​the anti-globalization movement such as the oil war in the peace and environmental movement. The adoption of the oil war paradigm by the peace movement of the 1990s is also seen on various occasions as a resumption and continuation of classic anti-American resentment.

Similar to Zischka, Dan Diner sees the peace and anti-globalization movement juxtaposing the alleged greed for oil of an Anglo-American or Israeli connotated plutocracy with a peaceful European technocratic vision.

Works (in selection)

• The struggle for the world power cotton , Goldmann, Leipzig 1935
• Abyssinia. "The last unsolved problem in Africa" , ibid. 1935
• as Thomas Daring: exploiters of nature. Goldmann, Lpz. u. a. 1935 Table of contents, foreword, chap. 1
• as Rupert Donkon: The Resurrection of Arabia. Ibn Saud's way and goal. ibid. 1935
• Japan in the world. The Japanese expansion since 1854. Goldmann ibid. 1936, completely revised. & multiplied 1937, 1938
• Italy in the world. Goldmann ibid. 1937, revised. & added 1938
• Science breaks monopolies. The researcher's struggle for new raw materials and new living space . Goldmann, Leipzig 1936
• Bread for 2 billion people. The fight for the food of the world , Wilh. Goldmann, Leipzig 1938
• Oil war. Change of the world power oil , Goldmann, Leipzig 1939
• England's alliances , Goldmann, Leipzig 1940
• Victory of work. History of the millennial struggle against ignorance and slavery , Goldmann, Leipzig 1941
• The Resurrection of Arabia , 1942
• Asia. Hope of a new world. Plans and possibilities of the neutral half of humanity. Oldenburg publishing house (formerly Gerhard Stalling) , 1950
• Africa. Europe's joint task No. 1 Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1951
• The world stays rich , 1952
• Liberated Energy - The human struggle for the use of the forces of nature . Karl Marklein-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1953
• Peace in a richer world. Foreword, table of contents (PDF; 385 kB) Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1958
• Asia's Wild West - The Change in Western China and Tibet, Mongolia and Siberia in 1959
• Pioneers of electricity. From amber to the cyclotron. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1958. New edition udT: Great pioneers of electricity. ibid. 1962 in the series "Education and Knowledge Library".
• War or Peace. The chances of peace in our time . C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh 1961
• Coal in the Atomic Age , Bertelsmann, 1961
• World without illiterates - problems and opportunities for educational help . C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh 1964
• The Ruhr in transition. Field of ruins or tomorrow's savior? Scharioth'sche Buchhandlung, Essen 1966
• Was it a miracle Two decades of German resurgence. Mosaic, Hamburg, 1966
• The end of the American century. 1972; again Stalling , Oldenburg 1985, ISBN 3-7979-1343-5
• Fight to survive. The human right to energy. Econ, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-430-19964-6
• (under the pseudonym Antal Sorba): The great cupping. 5000 years of the economy despite the tax office , Econ, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-430-18620-X
• The dollar. The gloss and misery of the world currency , Langen Müller / Herbig, 1986; Current new edition 1995, ISBN 3-7844-7345-8
• Chernobyl: no coincidence. Soviet Economy and the Mistakes of the West. Universitas, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-8004-1138-5
• The all driving force. World history of energy. Energie-Verlag, Heidelberg 1988, ISBN 3-87200-667-3

literature

• Heike Weber: Concepts of technology in the popular non-fiction literature of National Socialism. The works of Anton Zischka . In: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 66 (1999), H. 3, pp. 205-236.

Web links

• Literature by and about Anton Zischka in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Anton Zischka  in the German Digital Library
• List of literature to be discarded 1946 1. England's alliances. 6 centuries of British wars with foreign weapons. 2. Italy in the world. 3. Victory of work.

proof

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Wilhelm Füßl: Anton Zischka estate . (PDF) In: ARCHIVE-info . 1, No. 2, December 2000, p. 3. Retrieved May 18, 2014.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Page no longer available , search in web archives: Article by Dirk von Laak zu Zischka
3. ^ Andy Hahnemann: From the victory of work. Anton Zischka's correspondence with his publisher Wilhelm Goldmann 1934-1950. In: Non-fiction and popular knowledge in the 20th century. Ed. Hahnemann & David Oels. Frankfurt 2008, pp. 123-135
4. ↑ Jens Reich 'Ökorat as an example of green desire for authority
5. ↑ Heike Weber: Concepts of technology in the popular non-fiction literature of National Socialism. The works of Anton Zischka, in: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 66, Issue 3/1999, pp. 205–236.
6. ↑ cit. according to Timm Ebner: "The last unsolved problem in Africa". Anton Zischka's depiction of the Abyssinian War in 1935 between 'Axis', 'Anschluss' and World War II , in: Austria. History, literature, geography, ed. from the Institute for Austrian Studies ÖGL 60 (2016), pp. 182–196, here p. 195.
7. ↑ Feindbild Rambo in Die Zeit 1999 on the problematic origin of the term
8. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-y.html
9. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-x.html
10. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-y.html
11. ↑ About Zischka's book "The Dollar, Shine and Misery of the World Currency" ( Memento of the original from October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ Volker Breidecker: Keep our juice clean. The current slogan "Blood for Oil" has a dark history , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung of January 24, 2003.
13. ↑ so with non-fiction titles such as the Büso close journalist F. William Engdahl in "With the oil weapon to world power", the former FPÖ European member Hans Kronberger , in "Blood for Oil", including a foreword by the SPD solar expert Hermann Scheer , the former CDU -Member and pioneer of the peace movement Franz Alt and his "war for oil or peace through the sun"
14. ↑ Sebastian Voigt : 1/24, January 8, 2006, anti-Americanism, presentation (PDF; 163 kB), held at the holiday academy of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in September 2005
15. ↑ Dan Diner's enemy of America. On the persistence of a resentment Berlin: Propylaeen, 2002 ISBN 3-549-07174-4
16. ^ Dan Diner The war of memories and the order of the world Rotbuch, Berlin 1991
17. ↑ Dan Diner: Blood and Oil. About traditions of political culture , in: trade union monthly books , issue 3/1991, pp. 140–145.
18. ↑ 2 reviews: 1. The economic insight that the work conveys strengthens our political will. from: Saarbrücker Landeszeitung April 29, 1935; - 2. ... in view of Germany's struggle for its textile raw material supply, this book is of particular importance ... Deutsche Wirker-Zeitung May 2, 1935. - Foreword (PDF; 469 kB)
19. ↑ Preface, literature, table of contents, excerpt (PDF; 1.8 MB)
20. ↑ rough table of contents in the publisher's announcement, reproduction in the Abyssinia title, PDF file, penultimate page there
21. ↑ Verlagank. with rough content on the last page of the PDF file on the Abyssinia title
22. ↑ Blurb: ... what has been compiled here over the years ... has become more than just an economic report since the second German four-year plan was announced . That became the technical and global political background of a huge program that was supposed to show not only the way to German independence, but to peace in general, the way out of a world of fear and need into a world of self-confidence and wealth ... The DHM zum Four-year plan: Hitler's secret memorandum of August 1936 on the "four-year plan" outlined the programmatic aim of putting the economy and the army in readiness for war within four years. (online) Furthermore: ... to have awakened understanding for the four-year plan beyond the borders of the German Reich. from NSDAP: The training letter. - Suitable to become a house book of the time-conscious German. from: Reichssender Leipzig. - Table of contents: (PDF; 1.6 MB)
23. ↑ on the NS-Verlag, see the following title with note. - With the neutral half, Z means: Independent of East and West. He's already fantasizing about something like the later Third World movement.
24. ↑ G. Stalling was a militaria and SS publisher, with a right-wing main tendency even after 1945, see Der Geistliche91 der National Wiedergeburt . - Contents of the book: (PDF; 351 kB)