German daily newspaper

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German daily newspaper

description Daily newspaper (nationwide)
publishing company Deutsche Tageszeitung Druckerei und Verlag AG; from 1933 Deutsche Zentraldruckerei AG
First edition November 28, 1894
attitude April 30, 1934
Frequency of publication daily from Monday to Sunday
Article archive Berlin catalog 62; 78 (153); Microfilm archive 56; ZDB / Berlin State Library

The German daily newspaper was a national daily newspaper in the German Reich from 1894 to 1934 . In the beginning it was mainly read by the middle class , farmers, doctors and lawyers, later also by large landowners , large industrialists, bankers and ministerial officials. It appeared on weekdays with a morning and an evening edition, on Sundays “only” a morning edition. In general, the German daily newspaper was considered a serious paper. In the early years of the Weimar Republic it contained strong anti-republican tendencies. From 1925 onwards, conservative, mostly more neutral views were represented, which were in line with the positions of the German Men's Club (DHK). After the takeover of the Nazis who lost German newspaper very quickly to influence what announced an end.

The described German daily newspaper should not be confused with that of the German national, anti-clerical and anti-Semitic Pan-German Association in Vienna published German daily newspaper , the August 8, 1920 to March 31, 1921 with the motto "Pan-Germany hope - the goal Greater Germany" as Successor to the Vienna German daily newspaper and from April 1, 1921, appeared as the German-Austrian daily newspaper .

founding

The directors of the Association of Farmers and co-founders of the German daily newspaper around 1900, Diederich Hahn on the left , Conrad von Wangenheim in the middle , Gustav Roesicke on the right

The "Deutsche Tageszeitung Druckerei und Verlag AG" was founded on November 28, 1894 by the Association of Farmers with its headquarters in Berlin. The purpose was the operation of a book printing and publishing house of newspapers, magazines and books as well as the conduct of all related business. The publisher has published the following periodicals , among others :

  • German daily newspaper
  • Time issues
  • Berlin sheet
  • Illustrated agricultural newspaper
  • Agricultural market newspaper
  • Sheets for the German housewife
  • Announcements of the association for the promotion of the moor culture
  • The German forest
  • The hunt
  • Weekly Association of Farmers
  • Correspondence sheet and calendar of the Federation of Farmers
  • as well as the German Teachers' Journal .

development

The bathing photo of the first Reich President Friedrich Ebert , which was often polemic at the time, was first published in the German daily newspaper on August 9, 1919
Preference shares for RM 1,000 in  Deutsche Zentraldruckerei AG dated December 16, 1937

The German newspaper was up to the mid-1920s, one of the big landowners affiliated newspaper. Throughout its existence, topics of fundamental importance were discussed in it. In other words, the newspaper did not limit itself mainly to agricultural interests, but made general, social and political claims. Until 1918 it had the subtitle: “For Kaiser and Reich! - For the German way! - For German work in town and country! "

The news section was divided into domestic and international. The leading article on the front page mostly dealt with foreign policy issues. The economic section contained detailed market reports. The features section comprised serial novels or fiction articles, while detailed reports and reviews appeared under "Art, Literature and Theater". In the almost always two-sided advertisement section , companies and traders from all over the Reich placed advertisements in various sizes. The German daily newspaper was distributed nationwide through postal services and newspaper dealers.

During the First World War , the editorial staff distinguished itself in the editorials with detailed reports on the war situation from the point of view of various war participants. From 1914 to 1918 every Saturday evening edition contained the eight-page illustrated weekly supplement with front reports and current war images. These weekly supplements have a relatively high collector's value today.

In the early years of the Weimar Republic, the leading articles showed strong anti-republican tendencies. Politicians like Walter Rathenau or Matthias Erzberger were repeatedly referred to as "spoilers", " November criminals " and " fulfillment politicians ". The editors had a very clear opposition to the so-called Erzberger reforms .

The newspaper's circulation declined from 1922:

  • 1917: 60,000 copies
  • 1920: 65,000 copies
  • 1923: 42,000 copies
  • 1924–1927: 30,000 copies
  • 1928–1932: 25,000 copies
  • 1933: 10,000 copies

The Association of Farmers made considerable profits with the German daily newspaper . Up to 1922, the net profit with a circulation of around 40,000 copies was always between 150,000 and 190,000 marks ((1 mark (1924–1936) = 6.65 euros (2015); see Reichsmark )). A large part of this money flowed back into the federal government's coffers, whereby the purchase price could be kept low. The subscription to the newspaper was accordingly cheap: with a total price of 1.50 marks per quarter, it was well below its main competitors, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (7.50 marks), the Kreuzzeitung (8.50 marks) and Germania (7 marks ). In 1921 the union of the farmers' union with the German Landbund took place to form the Reichslandbund . From then on, the German daily Druckerei und Verlag AG had to support itself. After the inflation of 1922/23 , all reserves were destroyed, so that the German daily newspaper had to deal with the same sales prices as its competitors in the future, which was immediately reflected in the volume of the circulation.

In 1925, Helmut Rauschenbusch , who came from the banking sector, joined the Deutsche Tageszeitung Druckerei und Verlag AG as general director and managing director . Rauschenbusch increased the number of publications appearing in the publishing house and developed the company into a company with more than a thousand employees, including Jewish editors and communist printers until the German daily newspaper was closed . At the same time, Rauschenbusch modernized the company inventory to include:

  • 40 high-speed letterpress presses
  • 6 rotogravure printing presses
  • 3 gravure sheet machines
  • 3 Matern embossing presses together with a fully automatic casting system
  • 5 high-speed lithographic presses
  • several fully automatic bookbinding systems; chemical graphic machines for autotypes and line etchings as well as cartographic offset departments.

The direction of the newspaper remained “national”, but with a clear tendency towards prudence, moderation and neutrality. Rauschenbusch was a leading DHK member and, in line with the goals of the gentlemen's club , suggested mostly moderate tones in the German daily newspaper , based on understanding and balance. Accordingly, the relationship between the German daily newspaper and the National Socialists developed in an ambivalent manner . Although Adolf Hitler sought contact with the high-ranking personalities of the gentlemen's club, he repeatedly polemicized the members in public: "You speak against Marxism as a class phenomenon and are your own worst class phenomenon!"

Towards the end of the Weimar Republic, the competition among newspaper publishers reached its peak. The world's fastest newspaper rotary presses were then on the Spree . Publishing objects from large corporations sometimes appeared four times a day as morning, noon, afternoon and evening editions. In 1932, 4,702 different daily and weekly newspapers were published throughout the Reich. Never before and since have there been more newspapers in Germany. Half of the sheets were orientated and came from the Berlin Hugenberg , Mosse and Ullstein groups . Smaller and “independent” publishers were subject to enormous competitive pressure. Mergers were the order of the day.

In 1929 the Deutsche Tageszeitung Druckerei und Verlag AG succeeded in taking over the Berlin central printing company as a wholly-owned subsidiary - with its flagship, the Kreuzzeitung . Although this paper only had a daily circulation of 7,000 copies at that time, it was still one of the trend-setting organs of the conservative upper class, which was read mainly by the old Prussian elite, the nobility, officers, high officials and industrialists. For example, Hindenburg repeatedly emphasized that he only read the Kreuzzeitung .

The Deutsche Tageszeitung Druckerei und Verlag AG thus printed two daily newspapers for an identical target group . On the one hand, the circulation of the German daily newspaper was kept constant from 1928 to 1932 at 25,000 copies per morning and evening edition. On the other hand, after the Reichstag election of July 31, 1932 , more and more advertisers and subscribers were lost. From 1933 the circulation fell significantly. After the National Socialists came to power, the editorial team tried to maintain its neutrality. For example, on March 28, 1934 , the German daily newspaper was almost the only newspaper to publish an editorial about the so-called Stahlhelm Putsch . It emphasized the event and its importance in foreign policy, which was in considerable contrast to the Nazi press.

The last edition of the German daily newspaper appeared on April 30, 1934 . As early as January 16, 1933, the German daily newspaper Druckerei und Verlag AG changed its name to Deutsche Zentraldruckerei AG . The corporation remained under the leadership of Helmut Rauschenbusch until 1945. The publishing house continued to produce around 70 newspapers and magazines until the end of World War II . During this time, many writers and art historians who had been relieved of their positions wrote for the publisher, such as Lilli Fischel , Ludwig Grote and Alexander Dorner . Deutsche Zentraldruckerei owned stakes in, among other things:

  • Berlin central printing company Gebr. Unger Nachf. GmbH, Berlin
  • Graphic arts and cliché institute Zentraldruckerei GmbH, Berlin
  • Eduard Gaebler Geographical Institute GmbH, Leipzig.
  • Helmut Rauschenbusch Verlag, Berlin / Stollhamm (Oldenburg)
  • Deutsche Schriften-Verlag GmbH, Berlin
  • Rembrandt publishing house, Berlin.

The last edition of the Kreuzzeitung appeared on January 31, 1939. Overall, the number of daily newspapers fell during the Nazi era to around 2,500 in 1937 and further to 977 in October 1944. After the end of World War II, all German newspapers still in existence were banned. The Allies dissolved all publishers, printers and bookshops and imposed professional bans on old publishers until 1949. As early as 1948, the German Central Printing Company was re-established as a GmbH . Issued free papers and books, but never more newspapers. The company was later renamed as a stock corporation. Helmut Rauschenbusch remained the sole director and main owner of the publishing house until his death.

Reviews

In the more recent research it is emphasized that the German daily newspaper has insights and historical interpretations which it allows to emerge as a contemporary document and as an interpretation offer for complex historical connections from comparable sources of the time.

literature

  • Wilhelm Carlé: Weltanschauung and press. A sociological investigation. CL Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1931.
  • Herbert Frank: Mysterious cross connections across Germany: the German gentlemen's club. Ludendorffs Volkswarte-Verlag, Munich 1932.
  • Kurt Sontheimer : Anti-democratic thinking in the Weimar Republic. Munich 1962.
  • Eva Pfeifer: The image of Hitler in the mirror of some daily newspapers in the years 1929-1933. Verlag Uni-Druck, 1968.
  • Deutsche Zentraldruckerei: 75 years of Deutsche Zentraldruckerei AG. Career and charisma of a Berlin publishing and printing company. German central printing company, 1969.
  • Burkhard Treude: Conservative Press and National Socialism. Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1975.
  • Hans-Jürgen Puhle : Political agrarian movements in capitalist industrial societies. Germany, USA and France in the 20th century. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975.
  • Helmut Rauschenbusch: The burden of a generation. German central printing company, 1980.
  • Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar. 1918-1933. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1993.
  • Jürgen Bergmann: In the resistance against change. The agrarian milieu in the Weimar Republic. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey : German History 1866-1918 . Band power state before democracy . CH Beck, 1993, p. 584.
  2. ↑ Karin Ploog: When notes learned to run . Volume 3. Norderstedt 2016, p. 110.
  3. ^ Rudolf Stöber: German press history. Introduction, systematics, glossary. Overview of major newspapers and magazines. Konstanz 2000. also in: Focus on the Empire and the Weimar Republic with inventory information ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2017 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. the Department of Journalism at the University of Cologne. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / publizistik.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de
  4. ↑ Gabriele Melischek, Josef Seethaler (Ed.): The Vienna daily newspapers. A documentation . Volume 3: 1918-1938 . Frankfurt / Main 1992, p. 100 f. as well as Bernhard Seyringer: On the trail of an "insane assassination" .: The housing tax and its media negotiation from February 1922 to June 1934 . In: XING Magazine , December 30, 2013, p. 11.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Carlé: Weltanschauung and press. A sociological investigation. CH Hirschfeld, 1934, p. 149.
  6. ↑ Hartmut Kaelble , Rüdiger Hohls, Iris Schröder, Hannes Siegrist: Europe and the Europeans: Sources and essays on modern European history. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005, p. 163.
  7. ↑ Karsten Schilling: The Destroyed Legacy: Berlin Newspapers of the Weimar Republic in Portrait. Dissertation Pinneberg 2011. p. 283. See also Central Directory of Antiquarian Books: zvab.com
  8. ↑ Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences
  9. ^ Stefan Seeling: Organized Interests and Public Communication: An Analysis of Their Relationships in the German Empire. Springer-Verlag, 2013, p. 182.
  10. ^ Rudolf Vierhaus : German biographical encyclopedia . Walter de Gruyter, 2005. p. 211.
  11. ↑ Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 14: Kest – Kulk. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-22694-2 , pp. 3 ff. And Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German communists. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 , p. 116 ff.
  12. ↑ Der Druckspiegel: Volume 19, Issues 1–6. Druckspiegel-Fachzeitschriften-Verlags-GmbH, 1964. p. 40.
  13. ^ Rudolf Stöber: German press history. Introduction, systematics, glossary. Overview of major newspapers and magazines. Konstanz 2000. also in: Kaiserreich and Weimarer Republik with inventory information  ( 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. the Department of Journalism at the University of Cologne.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / publizistik.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de  
  14. ^ Fritz Günther von Tschirschky : Memories of a high traitor . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1972, p. 59.
  15. ^ Otto Altendorfer, Ludwig Hilmer: Media Management . Volume 2: Media Practice. Media history. Media regulations. Springer-Verlag, 2015, p. 164.
  16. ↑ Hans Bohrmann, Otfried Jarren, Gabriele Melischek, Josef Seethaler: Elections and Political Mediation through the Mass Media: Theoretical-Methodical Implications of Long-Term Analyzes. Springer-Verlag, 2013, p. 125 ff.
  17. ^ Rüdiger Graf: The future of the Weimar Republic: Crises and future appropriations in Germany 1918-1933. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008, p. 50.
  18. ↑ Hans Frentz: The Unknown Ludendorff: The general in his environment and epoch. Limes Verlag, 1972. P. 270. Carl von Ossietzky : The new world stage: weekly for politics, art, economy . Volume 30. Issues 27-52. Weltbühne, 1932. p. 1027.
  19. ↑ Hans Bohrmann, Otfried Jarren, Gabriele Melischek, Josef Seethaler: Elections and Political Mediation through the Mass Media: Theoretical-Methodical Implications of Long-Term Analyzes. Springer-Verlag, 2013, p. 125 ff.
  20. ^ Sergej Slutsch, Carola Tischler: Germany and the Soviet Union. 133/1934. Walter de Gruyter, 2014, p. 308.
  21. ↑ Curt Vinz, Günter Olzog (ed.): Documentation of German-language publishers, volume 3. Günter Olzog Verlag, 1977, p. 375.
  22. ↑ Dagmar Bussiek: With God for King and Fatherland! The Neue Preussische Zeitung (Kreuzzeitung) 1848–1892 . LIT Verlag Münster, 2002. P. 7 ff.
  23. ^ Kurt Koszyk : German Press 1914–1945. History of the German press . Part III. Colloquium Verlag 1972, p. 997.
  24. ^ Katharina Heimeier: Ownership structures of German newspaper publishers. Walter de Gruyter, 2013, p. 24.
  25. ↑ The print mirror . Volume 19, Issues 1-6. Druckspiegel-Fachzeitschriften-Verlag, 1964, p. 40 and Rudolf Vierhaus: German biographical encyclopedia . Walter de Gruyter, 2005, p. 211.
  26. ↑ Jürgen Bergmann, Detlef Lehnert, Klaus Megerle (eds.): Protest and revolt of agriculture in the Weimar Republic (1924-1933). Forms and types of the political agrarian movement in regional comparison. A historical comparison of regions. Studies on Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Opladen 1989, pp. 200-287. and Heinrich August Winkler: Weimar. 1918-1933. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1993, p. 112 ff.