Bremer Bürger-Zeitung

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The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung was a party newspaper of the SPD that appeared from 1890 to 1974 . For a time it was one of the leading social democratic newspapers in the German Reich and represented above all the left wing of social democracy.

history

Until the First World War

From the point of view of social democracy , it seemed necessary to counter the bourgeois-liberal-oriented press with the press organs of the working class. One of these papers was the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung. A first such attempt under the name “Bremer Volkszeitung” had previously been banned under the Socialist Act. The first edition of the newspaper appeared on May 1, 1890, before the socialist laws were formally repealed. The name of the newspaper as "Bürger-Zeitung" initially met with considerable resistance. In the decisive vote, however, the argument prevailed that the aim of the newspaper was to fight for the same civil rights for everyone. The first editors were Bruhns and Gottlieb. In particular, the editor and member of the Reichstag, Julius Bruhns, was part of the left wing of the SPD. In 1895, Bruhns had to resign from his position as editor after internal party disputes, and Franz Diederich Papers became editor-in-chief . In 1895, as a result of financial difficulties , the newspaper was taken over by Auer-Verlag in Hamburg ; from 1907 until 1974 the newspaper was printed by the party's own publishing house, Schmalfeldt & Co. In 1900 Alfred Henke became editor-in-chief of the Bremer Bürgerzeitung.

The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung subsequently supported the three-and-a-half- month strike by 17,000 Hamburg port workers in 1896/1897 with journalistic support. Also in Bremen school conflict in which reformist left teachers as Johann Knief , the comprehensive school , work school and a secularization demanded the school system, the newspaper entered a publicist. As a result, the SPD gained supporters among the teaching staff. The BBZ took the position that it was a question of class struggle . The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung gained employees like Knief, who had been dismissed from school as a result of the strike. Thanks to the commitment of editors such as Knief, but also employees Anton Pannekoek , Friedrich Ebert and Karl Radek , the newspaper received an extremely high level, so that Bremen was considered a center of workers' education. However, the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung strongly represented the left wing of the SPD. This became clear during the shipyard workers' strike of 1913. In northern Germany, 18,000 shipyard workers had initially laid down in Hamburg, other locations followed. The central board of the German Metalworkers' Association (DMV) was against what it considered to be a premature strike and initially wanted to exhaust all peaceful means against a widespread rejection within the shipyard workers. The BBZ represented the position of the striking workers.

First World War and the Bremen Soviet Republic

During the First World War , there were considerable disputes within the SPD over the peace policy of the SPD parliamentary group and the SPD leadership, also in Bremen. In contrast to the Reich, however, the left wing of the SPD had more support in Bremen. In 1916, a more right-wing local association was re-established alongside the original SPD local association. The left original local club was excluded from the party. At the same time, the party headquarters tried to enforce its policy in the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung by issuing instructions from Berlin. The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung was at times the only SPD publication that gave left-wing authors such as Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Radek or Anton Pannekoek the opportunity to publish. Finally, however, the more moderate and reform-oriented wing was able to prevail in 1916 with the help of the courts. This was regretted internationally by left-wing socialists such as Lenin as the loss of the left wing's last means of publication. The party left founded the weekly Arbeiterpolitik under the direction of Knief.

At the end of the war and at the beginning of the November Revolution, the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung was still the party paper of the majority Social Democrats ( MSPD ). Although it took a line that was more critical of the revolution, the Bremer Bürgerzeitung became one of the press organs that covered the November Revolution and the riots that followed most comprehensively. An important demand of the Bremen left- wing radicals , who were traced back to the former left-wing SPD local association, in the Bremen Council Republic, was to hand over the newspaper to them. After initial resistance in the Workers' and Soldiers' Council on the part of the Soldiers' Council, the latter finally gave in to the demands of the radical left. On December 20, 1918 the editorial staff was occupied by the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council, the editorial staff was passed on to representatives of the USPD and the International Communists (IKD). The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung now represented the positions of the council government until the military crackdown on the council republic on February 4, 1919.

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

During the Soviet Republic, the MSPD had founded the "Bremer Volksblatt". But this newspaper had been banned. After the end of the Soviet republic, the publishing house and printer were returned to the MSPD, but the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung was temporarily banned. The MSPD published the Bremer Volksblatt at Schmalfeldt & Co. After the reunification of the MSPD and parts of the USPD in October 1922, this newspaper became the “Bremer Volkszeitung (Bremer Bürger-Zeitung)” with the USPD's publication organ “Bremer Arbeiter-Zeitung”. The editors-in-chief were Alfred Faust and Wilhelm Kaisen . This newspaper reflected the opinion and directions of the SPD of the Weimar Republic . The disputes within the SPD about the development of the armored cruiser A , for example, were examined from both sides.

Even Hans Hack Mack , in 1945 the Weser-Kurier founded, was in 1922 as an editor at the Bremen Volkszeitung.

After the seizure of power of the Nazi party in 1933, the newspaper was on March 2, 1933 on the basis of the Reichstag Fire Decree prohibited by the Police Commission of the Senate.

Federal Republic

After British and Canadian troops took Bremen in 1945, National Socialism also ended here. From 1950, the SPD again published a party newspaper based on the pre-war period, initially as the weekly “Bremer Volkszeitung”, but soon again as the “Bremer Bürger-Zeitung”. The circulation at the beginning of the new publication was 150,000 copies.

In 1974 the print run had dropped to 2000 copies. As a daily and opinion newspaper, the editors no longer saw a future for the newspaper. The appearance was discontinued after a resolution of an SPD party congress. From August 30, 1974, the newspaper was initially continued as a weekly for sale. On December 30, 1975, the weekly paper was also discontinued. Instead, SPD members should receive a free monthly membership newspaper, provided they subscribe to one of the six district newspapers of the Schmalfeldt Verlag. These district newspapers continued to use the name "Bremer Bürger-Zeitung" as a subtitle. This continued until early 1976. Since 1976 the newspaper has appeared under the name “Bremer Anzeiger” as a free advertising paper twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays). The 2014 edition was 230,860 copies per issue.

In November 2014, Bremer Anzeiger GmbH filed for insolvency proceedings . After the Bremer Tageszeitungen GmbH (including Weser-Kurier ) had previously stopped working, the company found itself in financial difficulties due to emigrating employees and advertising customers. First of all, the Wednesday edition and the company's own delivery system were discontinued, and distribution was now carried out once a week with the Deutsche Post magazine "kauf aktuell ". Most recently, the remaining 20,000 copies were only distributed at 4,000 display points in the publication area. The newspaper no longer appears at all, the corresponding internet domain bremer-anzeiger.de was deleted on April 22, 2015.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lenin, About the Junius Brochure (1916), in: Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin - Works . Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED (ed.). Volume 22, 3rd edition, unchanged reprint of the 1st edition in 1960, Berlin / GDR. P. 312/313
  2. ↑ Renate Meyer-Braun, Klaus Auf dem Garten: Hans Hackmack - A life for the free word, Bremen 2000
  3. ^ Federal Association of German Advertising Papers (BVDA): Member publishers. Bremer Anzeiger GmbH. ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bvda.de

literature

Web links