The Golden Gate (magazine)

The golden gate. Monthly for literature and art was a literary magazine of the post-war period, which was founded by the writer Alfred Döblin in the service of the French occupation authorities in Baden-Baden (and later in Mainz) as part of the re-education of the Germans ( rééducation ) and published from 1946 to 1951. Her literary programmatic focus was on conveying foreign literature, literary tradition, exile literature and contemporary literature from Germany. The aim was, among other things, enlightenment in the spirit of Lessing, dealing with National Socialism and international understanding. In accordance with the new denomination of the publisher Döblin, the tenor of the editorial team, especially in the late phase of the magazine, became increasingly Christian and religious. Despite the lack of resonance complained by Döblin, Das Goldene Tor, with its publication time of around five years, is considered to be long-lived for a post-war magazine of a comparable type.

history

Baden-Baden years (1946–1949)

In July 1945 in exile in the United States, Döblin accepted the offer of a post in the education department of the French occupation authorities. On November 9 of the same year, he was one of the first prominent German exile authors to set foot on German soil again and reached Baden-Baden, d. H. the seat of the French military government, to which its department "Direction de l'Éducation Publique" was subordinate. One of his central tasks in this authority, which is responsible for the entire educational and cultural policy in the French zone of occupation, was - apart from the assessment of book manuscripts submitted for printing - in particular the preparation and publication of a literary magazine.

While the main features of this magazine had to be coordinated in discussions between Döblin and the French Germanist and director of the "Direction", General Raymond Schmittlein, Döblin was largely free to publish it. He himself wrote letters primarily to the German exiled authors he knew, such as Bertolt Brecht , Heinrich Mann , Lion Feuchtwanger , Ludwig Marcuse and others. a. and asked her to contribute to the magazine. Anton Betzner , whom Döblin already knew from his Berlin years and won over as editor in April 1946, put German authors in the country for the magazine. The first issue of the 'Golden Gate' appeared - preceded by the sample issue in April - in October 1946 by the long-established Moritz Schaufenburg publishing house in Lahr.

The magazine title 'The Golden Gate' refers to the strait of the sea to the American city of San Francisco, where the United Nations (UN) was founded in June 1945. In this sense, according to Döblin, this choice wanted to express the idea of international understanding: "The 'Golden Gate' through which poetry, art and free thought pass, [is] at the same time a symbol for human freedom and the solidarity of peoples".

Döblin continued to work as an editor after April 1, 1948, when he retired from the French cultural authorities due to the age limit. Betzner stayed in the editorial office of the 'Golden Gate' until the summer of 1949, after which he switched to Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden. After the currency reform, Herbert Wendt joined the editorial team in June 1948 and was a member of it until autumn 1949. Wolfgang Lohmeyer took over his office in the second half of this year and was employed until July 1951. While the initial circulation was 20,000 and rose to 25,000 in 1947 at Döblin's request, it fell rapidly in the course of the currency reform of June 1948 and in May 1949 was only 2,000.

Move to Mainz and the end (1949–1951)

In October 1949 Döblin moved to Mainz with the editorial team of the 'Golden Gate'. There was also the seat of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature , in the establishment of which Döblin played a key role and was consequently elected vice-president and chairman of the literary class. With a view to the low sales, the new publisher Bruno Grimm Döblin submitted proposals for editorial changes in June 1950, so that the magazine could weaken the French color with the help of other well-known co-editors. In view of this situation, from the fifth year onwards, Döblin increasingly called on the academy members to work on the 'Golden Gate'. On March 1, 1951, a provisional editorial committee was elected from the literature class ( Hans Henny Jahnn , Ernst Kreuder and Hans Erich Nossack ), and it was decided that the magazine should be supported by the academy from June of the same year with a monthly donation of 500 DM . Due to the final cancellation of the French subsidies, which goes back to the change in the occupation status in March 1951, Döblin had to stop the publication of the magazine - after a total of 37 issues. Nevertheless, the editor tried to use the amount of DM 15,000 that the French authorities made available, together with the monthly grant of DM 500, to found a new literary journal for the Academy's literary class. The plan for this new publication organ, Döblin's headings 'Don Quichotte' or 'Mainz Contributions', failed primarily because of the different ideas of Döblin and, for example, the planned editor of the first issue, Ernst Kreuder, with regard to the editorial orientation of the magazine.

effect

Egon Vietta, who worked as a translator and speaker on Italian literature for 'Das Goldene Tor' and was particularly instrumental in the Italy issue (3rd vol. 3), expressed his gratitude two years after the magazine closed:

“A lot has worked out today. And our time tends to live too quickly over what has actually been achieved. But your post-war work is a document and has tied more threads than the commercial and interested ties after the currency reform. It was a big and determined step. If some of your unfavorable prognoses about German post-war literature are out of date, it is not without your merit «.

As recently as the 1980s, Helmut Heißenbüttel praised 'Das Goldene Tor' as “a model for a possible literary and political magazine” and emphasized Döblin's dedicated and strict concept.

literature

Bernhardt, Oliver: Alfred Döblin, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 2007 (= dtv portrait), pp. 141–156.
Birkert, Alexandra: “The Golden Gate. Alfred Döblins Post-War Journal (Framework, Objectives, Development) ”, Archive for the History of the Book Industry, Vol. 33, 1989, pp. 201–317.
Schoeller, Wilfried F .: Alfred Döblin. A biography, Munich: Hanser 2011, pp. 629–830.

Web links

Literature by and about The Golden Gate in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Remarks

^ Döblin, Alfred: "Foreword" [To the magazine "Das Goldene Tor"]. In: ders .: Kleine Schriften, Vol. IV, ed. by Anthony W. Riley and Christina Althen, Düsseldorf: Patmos / Walter 2005 (= selected works in individual volumes), pp. 222–228, here p. 226.
↑ Quoted from: Schoeller, Wilfried F .: Alfred Döblin. A biography, Munich: Hanser 2011, p. 762.
↑ Cf. Birkert, Alexandra: “The Golden Gate. Alfred Döblins Post-War Journal (Framework, Objectives, Development) ”, Archive for the History of the Book Industry, Volume 33, 1989, pp. 201–317, here p. 292.

[1] Döblin, Alfred: "Foreword" [To the magazine "Das Goldene Tor"]. In: ders .: Kleine Schriften, Vol. IV, ed. by Anthony W. Riley and Christina Althen, Düsseldorf: Patmos / Walter 2005 (= selected works in individual volumes), pp. 222–228, here p. 226.

[2] Quoted from: Schoeller, Wilfried F .: Alfred Döblin. A biography, Munich: Hanser 2011, p. 762.

[3] Cf. Birkert, Alexandra: “The Golden Gate. Alfred Döblins Post-War Journal (Framework, Objectives, Development) ”, Archive for the History of the Book Industry, Volume 33, 1989, pp. 201–317, here p. 292.