Free press (exile newspaper)

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The Free Press (subtitle: Wochenblatt für Geistliche und Politische Freiheit) was a newspaper in exile for German social democrats that was published weekly in Amsterdam during the Nazi era from 1933 to 1934 .

history

The idea of ​​the Free Press arose within circles of the Dutch social democratic party SDAP . In view of the estimated 400,000 German speakers in the country, the newspaper, which was supposed to reach the border area, was expected to have a circulation of at least 20,000 copies. The distribution area should not be limited to the Netherlands, but rather the free press should also reach Germany illegally. The focus was particularly on German workers, who were represented in large numbers in the Twente textile industry and in the South Limburg mines.

The newspaper's editorial team was made up of German exiles under the leadership of Emil Groß and Helmut Kern ; other important editors were Erich Kuttner , Alfred Mozer , Franz Vogt and Heinz Wielek . The Prague SPD executive in exile, Sopade , agreed to the establishment, but, like the General German Trade Union Confederation, was not prepared to finance it; this was provided by the NVV union and the De Arbeiderspers publishing house , in addition to the SDAP .

The first edition appeared on July 15, 1933. According to its own information, the distribution area consisted of 19 European and three non-European countries. The Free Press had a volume of eight to ten pages and included a few fixed sections such as "Letters from Germany", "Everyday life from the Third Reich" and "Economy and Work". The news from the latter two was supposed to expose the Nazi regime . Contributions to the newspaper came from Georg Bernhard , Emil Julius Gumbel and Alexander Schiffrin .

Even if the editorial staff and staff were prominently staffed, the newspaper's circulation fell well short of expectations. It was a maximum of 7,000 copies in July, with a decrease of 1,000 copies in December. Although it was initially possible to create the Free Press to network in the Ruhr area and the surrounding area by bike and car (one of Emil Groß's networks was in Bielefeld ), most networks have been dismantled by the Gestapo since 1934 , which cost many victims. Because of the ongoing financial losses, the NVV and SDAP decided in December 1933 to withdraw from the financing, leaving only De Arbeiderspers . Its director informed the editors, without waiting for a decision by the supervisory board, that the appointment was imminent, which led to SDAP supervisory board member Cornelis Woudenberg, a supporter of the newspaper, resigning.

The complicated status of the editorial team also proved to be a hindrance, for example, due to an order from Justice Minister Josef van Schaik from July 1933, foreigners were not allowed to be politically active in the Netherlands. For this reason, the editorial staff and most of the staff worked anonymously, and the Free Press affirmed that it was a Dutch newspaper with a Dutch directorate that was financed by the Dutch. The SDAP, in turn, which tried to break away from its revolutionary past, was suspected of not being patriotic after the debate about the mutiny on the Zeven Provinciën by other parties, and took the position that anti-fascist activities would affect the locals should be reserved.

The relationship with Sopade, which published its own weekly newspaper Neuer Vorwärts in Karlsbad and Deutsche Freiheit in Saarbrücken in the Saar area administered by the League of Nations , also proved to be of no help . On the one hand, the Sopade forbade De Arbeiderspers to recruit subscribers to the Free Press outside the Netherlands; on the other hand, it wanted to see its decisions published in the paper. The SDAP, in turn, criticized the SPD for its actions before the seizure of power and rejected any form of cooperation with communists. The fact that the Sopade representative for the Netherlands, Ernst Schumacher , was expelled to Belgium was just one more point that reinforced the distrust. Schumacher also reported to Prague that the German ambassador to the Netherlands Julius von Zech-Burkersroda had asked the Dutch government to name the German employees of the German press and to ban their activities.

After the SDAP withdrew at the end of 1933, it gave the Free Press a month to find a new editor. This did not succeed, so that the 28th edition of the newspaper was discontinued on January 27, 1934.

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