Free Democratic Correspondence

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Issues of the fdk bound for each year in the archive of liberalism

The Free Democratic Correspondence (additional title fdk , since 1960 also written out free democratic correspondence ) was a press service of the Free Democratic Party published from 1950 to 2016 .

history

The idea of ​​introducing the press service was first put forward by journalist and member of the German Bundestag Ernst Mayer during a joint meeting of the FDP federal executive board and the executive board of the FDP parliamentary group on November 18, 1949 . The subscription-based service, which was chargeable in the beginning, was conceptually designed to help finance party work in addition to public relations work. In 1952, the subscription price was between DM 5.00 and DM 15.00 per month, depending on the price reduction negotiated , whereby the fact that dedicated political-advertising press information was only sold for a fee drew criticism from various sides from the start. The pricing policy was loosened more and more over time, until the press releases were finally obtained free of charge.

The Free Democratic correspondence was published since its inception in January 1950 by Ernst Mayer, the editors took a doctorate in Catholic theologian Josef monster . Both died relatively early: Mayer in December 1952 at the age of 51, Ungeheuer in October 1959 before the age of 50. The style introduced by both personalities remained formative for the press organ for two decades, for example until the beginning of the 1970s a more circular letter-like character with a table of contents on the cover and subsequent mostly multi-page reports or glosses with names . The frequency of publication was usually weekly, supplemented by issues on special occasions - the first year already comprised 91 individual issues.

During the period of publication, some derivatives , namely more or less directly related to the fdk, were launched, some of which only existed for a short time:

  • From March to October 1957 a fdk country edition appeared , which, in contrast to the actual press service , was intended to be aimed directly at a readership open to liberal content. The editorial team was on equal terms with Josef Ungeheuer, Karl-Hermann Flach and Ruth Tangemann.
  • from 1966 to 1969 the fdk specialist service of the FDP federal office appeared with separate issues on certain topics. The editor in charge was Herbert Willner .
  • from 1960 to 2003 the fdk day service appeared as an independent press organ for the FDP parliamentary group.
  • from 1985 to 1999 the FDP parliamentary group took up the idea of specialist information again with the FDP specialist information . During this period, reports were published at short intervals parallel to the fdk daily service, partly on recurring topics ("Agricultural Policy", "Taxes", "Climate") and partly on key words from the day's events ("Working hours", " Jäger 90 ", "Accident numbers") and comments, but also a few extracts from the official stenographic protocol of the German Bundestag.

The use of the coat name fdk or free democratic correspondence for statements, speeches, interviews, guest contributions and announcements was discontinued at the end of 2016. The press services of the party and parliamentary group, which are still in this tradition, have only been overwritten since 2017 with “press release” or “appointment announcement”. At the same time, the allocation of consecutive numbers was also discontinued.

Editors and publishers of the fdk

The chief editors were mostly in personal union spokesman of the party. However, the terms of office were not completely congruent in every case.

Surname Beginning The End function
Ernst Mayer 1950/01 1952/12 editor
Josef monster 1950/01 1959/10 Editor
Wolfgang Schollwer 1959/10 1970/06 Responsible editor
Volrad Deneke 1970/07 1971/06 Responsible editor
Joachim Stancke 1971/07 1971/12 Responsible editor
Dieter Chemin-Petit 1972/01 1975/09 Responsible editor
Josef Gerwald 1975/10 1981/03 Responsible editor
Herbert Schmülling 1981/04 1985/09 Responsible editor
Lothar Mahling 1985/09 1988/10 Responsible editor
Hans-Rolf Goebel 1988/10 1999/02 Responsible editor
Wulf Oehme 1999/02 1999/03 Responsible editor ( provisional )
Martin Kothé 1999/04 2004/06 Responsible editor
Wulf Oehme 2004/06 2004/08 Responsible editor (provisional)
Robert of Rimscha 2004/08 2009/12 Responsible editor
Wulf Oehme 2010/01 2012/12 Responsible editor
Peter Blechschmidt 2013/01 2013/12 Responsible editor
Nils Droste 2014/01 2016/12 Responsible editor

Editors of the fdk day service

Surname Beginning The End function
Wolfgang Schollwer 1960/10 1969/07 Responsible editor
Dietrich Feuerherdt and Erwin Reuss 1969/07 1970/01 Responsible editors
Eberhard Hofmann 1970/02 1983/03 Responsible editor
Reinhard Munkes 1983/04 1983/06 Responsible editor
Stefan Sethe 1983/06 1985/12 Responsible editor
Stefan Heydeck 1986/01 1993/06 Responsible editor
Clemens Heitmann 1993/06 1996/01 Responsible editor
Uwe Evers 1996/01 1999/06 Responsible editor
Martin Kothé 1999/06 2001/09 Responsible editor
Isabella Pfaff 2001/09 2003/06 Responsible editor

Availability

Individual editions of the press service fdk can be found in the catalog of the German National Library as well as in some state and university libraries . The archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach has almost no gaps .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Udo Wengst (edit.): FDP federal executive committee The Liberals chaired by Theodor Heuss and Franz Blücher. Minutes of meetings 1949–1954. 2 Bde., Droste, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 978-3-7700-5159-5 , p. 62.
  2. ↑ ADL, files of the FDP Federal Office, 2652-2653.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Schollwer: Liberal opposition to Adenauer. Records 1957–1961. Edited by Monika Faßbender, Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-486-55831-5 , p. 15.
  4. ↑ The work of the monsters. Der Spiegel, August 21, 1957, accessed on September 18, 2019 .