Ernst Heinrich Lange

Ernst Heinrich Kurt Lange (born October 27, 1876 in Schlawa ; † September 15, 1952 in the Walkmühle near Eisenberg (Thuringia) ) was a German entrepreneur and publisher .

Life

Ernst Heinrich Lange was the son of the inn owner, liqueur manufacturer and farmer Heinrich Carl Erdmann Lange (1843–1890) and his wife Maria Pauline (1850–1928) from Schlawa. He was married to Milda Luise Erler (born September 15, 1886 in Leipzig, † in the mid-1950s in Leipzig). The two daughters Ruth Lange (1912–2002) and Edith Lange (1916–1994) came from the marriage. His younger brother was the local politician Georg Lange (1883-1964), a cousin was the doctor Georg Hauffe (1872-1936).

Ernst Lange had been a member of the German Booksellers Association since 1905 . On February 16, 1931, the envoy from El Salvador appointed him electoral consul in Leipzig. It was the German Reich under the September 29, 1931 exequatur issued. The Salvadorian Consulate, newly established due to a significant expansion of economic relations in Leipzig (Elisenstrasse 15), was responsible for the district chiefs Leipzig , Chemnitz and Zwickau . At the political request of the Reich government, Lange had to resign from the electoral consulate in March 1941. As a result, the exequatur expired on March 22, 1941.

The older daughter Ruth Lange married the Czech publisher Ferdinand Schroll (born October 4, 1900 in Saaz) on April 21, 1933. In 1934 Schroll was granted power of attorney to several publishers and developed his own publishing areas. The Schroll family moved to Stuttgart in 1949.

In 1930 Ernst Lange bought the fulling mill, which is located in the touristically popular Eisenberger Mühltal in Thuringia, including a few hectares of forest, and spent the leisure time necessary for recreation there. After 1945 the fulling mill was the private stopover for the rest of the family, later it was a rest home of the FDGB until 1990. Since 1992, the fulling mill belonging to the descendants has been operated by a tenant as an excursion restaurant and conference hotel.

Lange & Meuche publishing house

As early as July 1904, the young bookseller Ernst Lange joined Wigand's bookstore as the owner and on August 1, 1907 he set up an open trading company in Leipzig with the bookseller Paul Meuche. This date marks the beginning of a congenial economic relationship between Ernst Lange and Paul Meuche. In the period that followed, the two publishers managed to take over several important Leipzig publishers without their own successors and to integrate them into the growing company conglomerate Lange & Meuche.

The publishing house Lange & Meuche united very different publishers under one roof: Abel & Müller; Anton A. & Co .; Fritz Casper, HR Dohrn, A. Engelhardt, Ewald & Co. Nachf., L. Fernau (Verlag Auerbach's German Children's Calendar), Leipziger Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Lomnitz (general distribution for patriotic history), Paul Meuche (Jaeger-Versand), Friedrich Rothbarth, Schmidt & Spring (Jugendfreund-Verlag), Friedrich W. Trotsky, Maximilian Wendel, Georg H. Wigand.

Friedrich Rothbarth Verlag

Since June 2, 1909, the Friedrich Rothbarth publishing house has belonged to the owners Ernst Lange and Paul Meuche. The economic success of this publishing house depended crucially on the publishing activities for the aspiring writer of light literature, Hedwig Courths-Mahler . From 1912, the book editions of her novels were mainly published by this publisher. During the First World War , the publisher had started to print the novels by Courths-Mahler in postcard format and to mark them with the note “For field post deliveries” when they were sent to the front. Hundreds of thousands of these literary letters went to the front. In the 1920s, Rothbarth Verlag published three quarters of their novels as books. In doing so, Rothbarth Verlag worked closely with Ewald & Co., which also belonged to Lange & Meuche, and the Verlag modern Lektüre GmbH (Berlin).

Georg Wigand publisher

The publishing house, which was taken over in 1913, is the company of Georg Wigand (1808-1858), the younger brother of Otto Friedrich Wigand (1795-1870). Many years after the death of Georg Wigand, the youngest son Martin Wigand took over the business in 1874 and ran it until his death on January 10, 1891. Since February 1, 1891, the Georg Wigand company was owned by Ferdinand Lomnitz (* December 12, 1862 in Naumburg; † August 21, 1913 in Leipzig). After the death of the last sole owner, on November 28, 1913, an open company took over the publishing house with the two publishing booksellers Paul Meuche and Ernst Lange as partners. One of the strengths of this publishing house was through illustrations, especially books illustrated by artistic drawings. The main lines of business were an art publisher, fiction and the original publisher of Ludwig Richter .

Abel & Müller publishing house

The Leipzig publishing house Abel & Müller mainly published illustrated youth publications such as adventure novels from the milieu of the German colonies such as by Friedrich Meister: Take care, Herero! (1904); Burenblut (1903); In the German South Seas ; The Vampire. A Maritime History (1911). The publisher published a German translation by Friedrich Meister with illustrations by Eduard Klingebeil, the popular edition of the 5 leather stocking stories by JF Cooper : The wild killer , the last of the Mohicans , the scout , leather stocking and the old trapper . Abel & Müller emerged from the publishing house Ambrosius Abel (1820–1878); In 1890 the entire publishing house for young people was ceded to Hans Abel (* 1855) and Albert Müller, who thus founded the new company Abel & Müller, which on January 1, 1892 became the sole property of Albert Müller.

The Abel & Müller publishing house was acquired by the Paul List publishing house in Leipzig in 1919, which published a number of splendid illustrated editions such as fairy tale books. In 1925 List sold the publishing house again for financial reasons. In 1921 Abel & Müller published the classic for young people "Gulliver's Travels to Lilliput and Brobdingnag to the Dwarfs and Travels" by Jonathan Swift , illustrated by Ernst Kutzer (illustrator) .

Publishing house HR Dohrn

The Dresden publisher HR Dohrn, for example, today published books by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, such as Venus im Pelz , Grausame Frauen , that were sold in antiquarian books at high prices . Short stories left behind (1901); by Johannes Jühling The Inquisition (1903) and Rudolf Quanter The Torture in German Justice Otherwise and Now (1903). Dohrn Verlag was also probably taken over by Lange & Meuche after the First World War.

Publishing house L. Fernau

The Leipzig publisher L. Fernau published - like the publisher A. Anton & Co. - from 1919 works by the Central German fairy tale writer Johannes Gottwalt Weber, some of which were illustrated by Fritz Baumgarten or Albert Ebert. From 1887 onwards, Auerbach's German children's calendar was one of the publisher's offerings . A festival for boys and girls of all ages . The children's calendar was an important standard product in the Lange & Meuche publishing house.

Publishing house of Auerbach's German children's calendar

Auerbach's children's calendar appeared in the mid-1920s in the spin-off "Verlag von Auerbach's German children's calendar Leipzig (Fernau)". In 1935, the cover of the children's calendar was designed for the first time instead of red in brown and with a motif of the Hitler Youth , and the content was also strongly geared towards this. In the following year, however, they returned to the previous red cover and the familiar content. This is due to Albert Sixtus , who held the position of editor from 1936 and as a "calendar man" corresponded with children from all over the world.

Verlag A. Anton & Co.

A. Anton & Co. was a children's book publisher. As early as 1910, Andersen's fairy tales (printed by Otto Wigandsche Buchdruckerei Leipzig) were published in an illustrated version. From 1920 the publisher started to publish the books of the illustrator Fritz Baumgarten in very high editions. From this publishing house, the Titania Verlag, headed by Ferdinand Schroll and based in Stuttgart , developed in 1949 .

Illustrated magazines

Technical inventions such as the high-speed press, thread stitching and the widespread use of photography opened up a new market for periodically published magazines. The publishing house entered this growing market for magazines in particular through Paul Meuche as editor with numerous similar products. By combining a book publisher and a magazine, Lange & Meuche was able to double-use individual novels through preprinting. Between 1925 and 1936, over 30 novels by Hedwig Courths-Mahler appeared in periodicals such as Im traulichen Heim .

Ewald & Co. Nachf.

Pure novel magazines had existed in Germany since 1866; Ultimately, the works of Karl May (1842–1912) also became known for the first time in this way and for many years occupied the space that Hedwig Courths-Mahler subsequently occupied with her works. In this respect, the publishing house Ewald & Co. entered a prepared market with its literary draft horse Courths-Mahler, which was also in upheaval from the mid-1920s and thus after the inflation.

Most of the illustrated products were produced until the 1930s and sometimes even into the 1940s. Due to the war economy and the death of Paul Meuche in November 1944, this entire product line collapsed shortly before the end of the war.

Book and newspaper printing

Since Lange & Meuche understood the earnings of the publishing work to be skimmed off under one roof, they merged the companies of Otto Wigand's publishing bookshop (Otto Friedrich Wigand, 1795–1870) and Walther Wigand's book printing company as a GmbH into the Lange & Meuche publishing conglomerate integrated and then commissioned in-house as a printing company.

Otto Wigand printing house

The company and family history of Otto Wigand and his three sons is of particular social interest because Karl Marx in 1867 Das Kapital at the printing works of Otto Alexander Wigand (1823–1882), the son of the well-known publisher Otto Friedrich Wigand, in Leipzig first printed. Lange & Meuche were probably able to take over the company "Otto Wigand Verlagsbuchhandlung und Buchdruckerei mb H.", which was newly established as a company on July 1, 1906, after the death of the last owner Thekla Wigand (* 1870). This means that the printing company responsible for printing capital has finally passed into the ownership of Lange & Meuche and merged into their corporate conglomerate. Using the example of the pioneering Marxian work, it was immediately shown how capitalism works.

Continuation after 1945

The publishing house Lange & Meuche was severely weakened by the death of its partner Paul Meuche in November 1944 and the Second World War . Long son-in-law Ferdinand Schroll developed the Titania Verlag in Stuttgart from parts of the publishing house from 1949 . Lange's grandchildren Gerdi Schroll (* 1934) and Wolfgang Schroll (1942–2005) continued the publishing house as a family business. After the brother's death, the publishing house was sold and taken over by Terzio Verlag as the majority shareholder and by Mathias Berg on January 1, 2007.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lange family records
2. ^ Letter from the AA dated September 30, 1931, Political Archive R 120315.
3. ↑ Legation de El Salvador, verbal note from February 20, 1931, AA Politisches Archiv R 120315.
4. ↑ Message from the AA dated March 22, 1941, AA Politisches Archiv R 120315.
5. ↑ http://www.walkmuehle-eisenberg.de
6. ↑ Musikverlagswiki at www.musikdrucke.htwk-leipzig.de/wordpress/?p=632
7. ↑ Musikverlagswiki at www.musikdrucke.htwk-leipzig.de/wordpress/?p=626
8. ↑ https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Der_Vampyr_(Friedrich_Meister)
9. ^ Andreas Graf: Hedwig Courths-Mahler. Portrait. Munich 2000, p. 76 and p. 88-90.
10. ↑ Inge Kießbauer: Who printed "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx? Pp. 107-122.