Berner Tagwacht

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Berner Tagwacht

description Swiss newspaper
publishing company Berner Tagwacht AG
First edition January 4, 1893
attitude November 29, 1997
Sold edition 2,300 (1894) –20,000 (1930s), most recently 5,700 copies
(HLS)
Editors-in-chief with longer terms of office:
Carl Vital Moor (1894–1906),
Robert Grimm (1909–1918),
Hans Vogel (1918–1948),
Alfons Scherrer (1955–1964),
Richard Müller (1970–1996)

The Berner Tagwacht was a social democratic, then left-green Swiss newspaper . In its more than 100-year history, it has changed, according to its own assessment, "from a class-fighting organ to a modern, eco-social newspaper".

history

The Berner Tagwacht was founded in 1892 by the Arbeiter-Union Bern, an organization of the labor movement comprising various unions and workers' parties , as an organ of the Social Democratic Party of the Canton of Bern and as a successor to the Swiss Social Democrats published by Albert Steck from 1888 (whose year was in the newspaper head of the Berner Tagwacht continued until the end of 1954). After two sample numbers in December 1893, it appeared twice a week from January 4, 1893. From December 1, 1906, it came out as a daily newspaper. From 1909 to 1918 the editor-in-chief Robert Grimm turned it into a leading fighting paper for the working class , which received international attention during the First World War and was banned in Germany in 1915. The print run was 2,300 copies in 1894, rose to 17,000 by 1918 and even to around 20,000 in the 1930s, but then fell back to 11,600 copies during the Great Depression in 1939. Then it rose again to 17,000 copies by 1954.

Front of the first edition of the Berner Tagwacht from January 4, 1893 (source: Swiss Social Archives )

As a subtitle which led the Bernese Tagwacht under the in Gothic script set newspaper titles by the end of February 1909, "organ of the Social Democratic Party of Berne", then by now in gothic script set newspaper titles only "Social Democratic Tagblatt" and the end of February 1912 to the end of 1954 " Official publication of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland ”(supplemented since 1951 by“ and the union cartel of the Canton of Bern ”). After that, the subtitle was dropped.

In 1966 the Berner Tagwacht merged with the Seeländer Volkszeitung von Biel , which increased the circulation to 19,000 copies. After the merger, the newspaper was only called Tagwacht ( Berner Tagwacht and Seeländer Volkszeitung in the subtitle, with a new newspaper title in an antique font ), from 1972 only TW , before it reverted to the old name Berner Tagwacht in 1979 (whereby the newspaper title until the end of 1987 was even set in a Gothic font again, with a red "stamp" TW ; in the text part, the Bernese Tagwacht had already replaced the Fraktur with the Antiqua at the beginning of 1952).

The Berner Tagwacht had to struggle with financial problems again and again during its entire existence and was close to being closed several times. At the beginning of 1974, in the worst financial crisis in its history to date, it shrank to a five-time weekly publication (the Saturday edition was omitted) and from Mondays to Thursdays to just two to four pages under pressure from the publisher, Unionsdruckerei AG. Towards the end of the year, however, it appeared again on Saturday after switching to the Bunds printer , increased in size again and now appeared in the morning. However, the circulation had dropped to 7,000 copies. In order to ensure her survival, she issued one of the many solidarity appeals in her history to SP members and trade unionists at the end of the 1980s .

As early as the 1970s, Tagwacht / TW had concluded cooperation agreements with social democratic daily newspapers in other cantons, for example with the Basler Arbeiter-Zeitung until 1984 and with the Freie Aargauer until 1987.

In 1987 the publisher, Bubenberg Druck- und Verlags-AG (formerly Unionsdruckerei AG), which had been printing the Berner Tagwacht again since mid-1982, decided to stop publishing the newspaper in view of the losses. The editorial team then launched a call for 2,000 new subscriptions. Although only 200 could be concluded, the newspaper could be continued in 1988, now in the Basler Volksdruckerei and with a new publisher, the Berner Tagwacht AG, no longer as a social democratic, but as a left-green newspaper under self-administration by the employees. She got the cover pages again from the Basler Arbeiter-Zeitung . A new newspaper title, no longer in Gothic script, underlined the change. At the same time the subtitle Seeländer Volkszeitung was dropped .

After the Berner Tagwacht had not accepted a price increase requested by the Basler Volksdruckerei in 1991, it switched to the printing company of Schaer AG Thun in Uetendorf in spring 1992 . She obtained the cover pages from Schaffhausen AZ or from Mantaz AG in Schaffhausen, which was later founded for this purpose and which also supplied the cover for Winterthur AZ (from 1997 Stadtblatt ), Ostschweizer AZ and DAZ (formerly Volksrecht ). At the same time, the editorial team switched to desktop publishing , introduced a new layout and again changed the newspaper title. In 1993 the newspaper repeated the call to subscribe to new subscriptions after advertising revenues had declined further due to the change in the advertising strategy of the major distributors to advertise more in TV channels instead of the press. The result was better this time, but still insufficient.

In 1996, the Berner Tagwacht tried one last time to acquire new and younger subscribers by changing the layout and doing more of their own. From April 25, 1996, the newspaper was now called Berner Tagwacht - Die Neue . But even this initiative did not bring the hoped-for upswing.

In 1997 the Berner Tagwacht had to stop its publication. After the transition of the Schaffhauser AZ from the daily to the three times weekly local newspaper in mid-1997, the last of the original four partner newspapers for the cover pages was canceled and due to the insufficient advertising income, also caused by the modest circulation of around 5,700 copies the deficits have become intolerable. The end of the Berner Tagwacht meant the end of the social democratic or left-wing alternative daily press in Switzerland.

An attempt was then made to establish a left-wing weekly newspaper in Bern as a successor under the title The Capital , but this only survived for half a year.

A partial archive (1966 to 1998) of the Bernese Tagwacht is located in the Swiss Social Archives .

Editors-in-chief

  • 1893: Gottlieb Ott (at the same time and after his resignation at the end of 1893 was typesetter for the newspaper)
  • 1894–1906: Carl Vital Moor (then delegate of the Board of Directors until the end of 1914; he was repeatedly accused of “undisciplined working methods”; the dispute that arose after he was accused of fornication and acquitted led to the split in the Bern labor movement; 1897 –1920 Bern City Council , 1897–1922 Grand Councilor Canton Bern [ legislature ], 1908 Swiss representative in the International Socialist Bureau in Brussels, 1909 President of the Bern SP; financier of the Russian Revolution, friend of Lenin, honorary citizen of the Soviet Union)
  • 1907–1908: Philipp Meister and Johann Hüppy (alternately)
  • 1908–1909: Philipp Meister
  • 1909–1918: Robert Grimm (previously workers secretary in Basel; already elected as editor of Basler Vorwärts , he opted for the Bern day watch ; printer, 1907–1909 Cantonal Councilor of Basel-Stadt, 1909–1918 City Councilor of Bern, 1910–1938 Cantonal Councilor Bern [Legislatives], 1918–1938 Bern municipal council , 1938–1946 first social democratic governing council of the canton of Bern [ executives ], 1911–1919 National Councilor for the Canton of Zurich, 1920–1955 National Councilor for the Canton of Bern [1926 Vice President, 1946 President, 1936– 1945 President of the Social Democratic Group], 1911–1943 President of the SP of the Canton of Bern [member of the management board until 1958], 1915–1917 and 1919–1936 member of the management of the SP Switzerland; 1946–1953 director of the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon Railway )
  • 1918–1948: Hans Vogel (previously Bundeshaus correspondent for the social democratic press; Glarus, 1917–1936 member of the management of the SPS, 1922–1947 Bern city council, 1926–1938 Grand Councilor of the Canton of Bern [legislature])
  • 1948–1954: Ernest Bütikofer (teacher from Biel, President of the SP Biel, Biel City Council [legislature], 1919–1930 Secretary of the SP of the Canton of Bern, 1918–1932 Grand Councilor of the Canton of Bern [legislature, 1931–1932 President], 1925–1928 National Council; joined the editorial team in 1930)
  • 1955–1964: Alfons Scherrer (previously employed in the legal office of the Schweizerische Volksbank in Biel, central secretary of the Association of Trade, Transport and Food Workers VHTL , after resigning as editor-in-chief, magistrate; 1950–1964 Grand Councilor of the Canton of Bern [legislature], joined in 1948 the editors said, "had a hard time with the left and intellectual wing of the SP")
  • 1964–1968: Kurt Schweizer (already wrote as a student for the Bernese Tagwacht , joined the editorial team in 1948 [drawing editor from 1955]; 1955 Bern city council [legislature], 1968–1984 Bern city council [executive])
  • 1968–1969: Hermann Battaglia (previously editor of the St. Galler Volksstimme , later editor-in-chief of Berner Nachrichten and the Coopzeitung as well as president of the audience council of SRG German-speaking Switzerland )
  • 1970–1996: Richard Müller (previously editor of the Bundeshaus, remained a permanent employee of the newspaper after his resignation)
  • 1996–1997: Michael Kaufmann (previously editor of the Bundeshaus, 1992–2004 Grand Councilor Canton Bern [Legislative], 2004–2011 Vice Director of the Federal Office of Energy , from 1995 Vice President of the Swiss Jazz School in Bern, since 2011 Director of the Lucerne School of Music )

Other members of the editorial team included a. Friedrich Heeb (1909–1918, represented Robert Grimm in his absence as the responsible editor), Paul Meinen (was responsible editor together with Hans Vogel in mid-October 1918 after Robert Grimm left because of his election to the local council until February 1919 together with Hans Vogel), Josef Belina (represented Hans Vogel as editor-in-chief for one month in 1919), Anton Pannekoek , Robert Bolz (1920–1930, represented Hans Vogel several times in his absence as editor-in-chief), Herbert Hess (“Herberteuse”), Franz Welte , for the literary part Carl Albert Loosli (until 1909) and, for economic issues, the former SP Federal Councilor Max Weber (1955–1974; in 1968, after the Swiss election to the local council and before Battaglia's appointment, he was editor-in-chief for nine months on an interim basis). Hermann Rupf worked as an art and music critic from 1909 to 1932, as a freelance journalist a. a. Albert Steck , Friedrich Siebenmann, Nikolaus Wassilieff, Karl Hakenholz, Eugen Münch (from 1900), Tobias Akselrod , Karl Radek (1914–1918, under the pseudonym «Parabellum»), Eduard Weckerle, Alfred Fankhauser , Emmy Moor and Paul Jakob Müller ( «Paolo», draftsman) for the Bernese Tagwacht .

literature

  • Richard Kohli: 100 years of the Bern Day Watch. From the class struggle via survival to the leap into «postmodernism» . Licentiate thesis. Historical Institute of the University of Bern , Bern 1992, OCLC 604851736 .
  • Fritz Blaser: Bibliography of the Swiss Press. 2nd half volume, Birkhäuser, Basel 1958, p. 154. In: Sources on Swiss history. Published by the Swiss General History Research Society, 25 volumes, 1877–1906. New Series, Section IV: Manuals, Volume VII (PDF; 257 MB).

Web links

Commons : Berner Tagwacht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Bollinger: Berner Tagwacht. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ a b Berner Tagwacht: Richard Müller died. In: advertising week. 14th of June 2013.
  3. ^ A b c Social Democratic Party of the Canton of Bern: Class struggle (rhetoric) and reform policy: 100 years of the SP Canton of Bern . HEP Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-033-00395-8 , p. 259.
  4. ↑ a b Richard Kohli: 100 Years of the Bern Day Watch. From the class struggle via survival to the leap into «postmodernism». Licentiate thesis. Historical Institute of the University of Bern , Bern 1992. In: 1890s: Local political war mood. In: Berner Tagwacht. October 13, 1992 (anniversary edition), p. 17.
  5. ↑ Marc Gebhard: The eventful history of the Bern day watch (1st part): condemned to be marginalized from the start. In: Berner Tagwacht. November 25, 1997.
  6. ↑ a b c Marc Gebhard: The Berner Tagwacht between censorship and financial difficulties (2nd part and conclusion): A decade-long struggle for survival. In: Berner Tagwacht. November 26, 1997.
  7. ↑ From Fraktur to Antiqua. In: Berner Tagwacht. January 19, 1952.
  8. ↑ The TW says “Good morning”. In: TW. 2nd December 1974.
  9. ^ A b Heinz Däpp : Readers soon to retire. In: plain text . No. 2/1996.
  10. ↑ Escape to the front. In: plain text . No. 6/1991.
  11. ↑ Thrust over. In: plain text . No. 3/1993.
  12. ↑ Klaus Bonanomi : New chapter. In: plain text. No. 1/1998.
  13. ↑ Ursula Dubois: Barrels without bottoms. In: plain text . No. 4/1998.
  14. ^ Entry of the Bernese Tagwacht in the catalog of the Swiss Social Archives .
  15. ^ Brigitte Studer: Carl Vital Moor. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  16. ^ Marina Rumjanzewa : A Swiss as a financier of the Russian revolution. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . January 26, 1999.
  17. ↑ Bernard Degen : Forward. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  18. ↑ Short biography.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Robert Grimm Society.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zimmerwald1915.ch  
  19. ^ Adrian Zimmermann: Hans Vogel. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  20. ↑ Martin Fischer: Ernest Bütikofer. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  21. ^ Fritz Blaser: Bibliography of the Swiss Press. 2nd half volume, Birkhäuser, Basel 1958, p. 154. In: Sources on Swiss history. Published by the Swiss General History Research Society, 25 volumes, 1877–1906. New Series, Section IV: Manuals, Volume VII (PDF; 257 MB).
  22. ↑ Markus Bürgi: Robert Bolz. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  23. ↑ Markus Jakob, Markus Rätz: Cafe du Commerce: a Bernese cultural history. Gachnang & Springer, 2004, p. 39.
  24. ↑ Changes to the "Tagwacht" editorial team. In: Tagwacht. 1st October 1968.
  25. ^ Adrian Zimmermann: Friedrich Siebenmann. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  26. ↑ Bernard Degen: Nikolaus Wassilieff. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  27. ↑ Bernard Degen: Karl Hakenholz. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  28. ↑ Leyla Gül : Eugen Münch. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  29. ^ Hermann Wichers : Eduard Weckerle. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .