Edgar Herfurth
Edgar Herfurth (born October 24, 1865 in Leipzig , † May 21, 1950 in Marktredwitz ; full name: Julius Edgar Herfurth ) was an important German newspaper publisher .
Life
Edgar Herfurth was born the son of a wealthy cloth manufacturer and founded the Edgar Herfurth & Co. publishing house with his older brother Paul in 1892 , which took over the Leipziger Nachrichten newspaper, which had been published by Guido Reusche since 1860 .
The young publisher succeeded in winning well-known editors for his paper, which he soon renamed Leipziger Latest Nachrichten and Handelszeitung and, within a few years, expanded it to become the daily newspaper with the highest circulation in Leipzig. Edgar Herfurth remained committed to a bourgeois political understanding. Throughout his life, he adored the former Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , with whom he maintained lively contact in the 1890s.
The circulation of the Leipziger Latest Nachrichten rose from 5,000 in 1892 to 36,000 in 1897 and finally reached 100,000 subscribers before the First World War . Herfurth's economic success was based above all on fast and comprehensive reporting, serial novels and a large section of classifieds, with which he covered the information and entertainment needs of his - not only bourgeois - readership. Before the Second World War, the newspaper's circulation rose to over 140,000 copies a day and to over 160,000 on Sundays.
Edgar Herfurth & Co. also published other papers such as the Leipziger Abendpost , the Leipzig World Fair , the Schwimmer and the family magazine Welt und Haus . Herfurth's printing works were technically up to date. In 1897 he was the first German publisher to use the Linotype typesetting machine and in 1909 he introduced the first 64-page twin rotary press in Europe .
Edgar Herfurth also promoted journalism . In 1916/1917 the "German Pulitzer " granted Karl Bücher financial support for the establishment of the first institute for newspaper science at the University of Leipzig and in 1929 he suggested the establishment of a department for business journalism and newspaper management at the Leipzig Graduate School . The University of Leipzig named Edgar Herfurth an honorary senator and the commercial college awarded him an honorary doctorate in economics for his services .
In 1910 he married Gabriele, nee Becker. They had the sons Rolf-Edgar and Klaus-Edgar.
In 1945 the publisher had to leave his hometown after the invasion of the Red Army and moved to Marktredwitz, where he died on May 21, 1950. His grave is in the Südfriedhof in Leipzig.
Edgar Herfurth's older brother was the entrepreneur Paul Herfurth , who turned his residence in Markkleeberg into one of the most beautiful private parks in Saxony. Today the park is part of the agra park .
literature
- Edgar Herfurth , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 39/1950 of September 18, 1950, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
- Adalbert Brauer: Herfurth, Julius Edgar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , pp. 607 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Katrin Löffler, Iris Schöpa, Heidrun Sprinz; The Leipzig South Cemetery. History, gravesites, grave monuments. Edition Leipzig in the Dornier Medienholding, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-361-00526-4 .
- Walter Fellmann: Saxony Lexicon. Koehler & Amelang, Munich and Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7338-0234-9 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Herfurth, Edgar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Herfurth, Julius Edgar (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German publisher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 24, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leipzig |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 21, 1950 |
| Place of death | Marktredwitz |