Germania (newspaper)

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Germania - newspaper for the German people was from 1871 to 1938 a national daily newspaper in the German Reich . The paper was founded expressly as a party newspaper of the Catholic-conservative German Center Party , or Center for short .

Development in the German Empire

The first sample number appeared on December 28, 1870 in Berlin . From January 1, 1871, the newspaper was distributed nationwide, initially as a daily single edition and from 1881 with a morning and an evening edition. The main initiator is Friedrich von Kehler , one of the co-founders of the Center Party, who then took over the post of managing director at Germania for several years . In terms of press law , the party was initially responsible for the content of the newspaper; Germania Aktiengesellschaft was founded in October 1872 as a party-owned publisher.

For the first three months, the editor-in-chief was a childhood friend of Kehler's, Friedrich Pilgram , who wanted to build a Catholic and nationally minded newspaper and thus gave the paper his name. Paul Majunke then took over as editor-in-chief. Under his leadership, the editorial team campaigned during the Kulturkampf for the influence of the Catholic Church in public and in politics as well as for the papal primacy of church and religion over state and science. Germania was banned for ten years because of its positions in the Catholic Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine . Bismarck welcomed this decision because he considered the paper to be "dangerous to the state and subversive".

Under Majunke's leadership, Germania rose to become one of the most widely read Catholic daily newspapers. His successor from 1878 to 1881 was Adolph Franz , followed by Friedrich Nienkemper (1847–1922). From 1891 Eduard Marcour took over the chief editor, and from 1894 Hermann ten Brink (1851-1916). After his death, August Hommerich (1875–1925) followed, who was replaced by Hermann Orth in September 1922.

Trends in the Weimar Republic

After the November revolution of 1918/19, the center changed from a national-conservative party to a Christian-democratic people's party and was able to form coalitions with almost all political groups during the Weimar Republic . Accordingly, Germania regularly adapted its content orientation to the party line during this time. From 1925 to 1931 the print run of the sheet was constant at 43,000 copies.

In 1927 Ernst Buhla (1891–1951) was hired as chief editor. Hermann Orth switched to the Kölnische Volkszeitung . In mid-1932 Emil Ritter (1881–1968) took over the chief editor. Franz von Papen pursued the appointment of the national conservative Catholic . During the period of inflation, Papen had acquired 47% of the shares in Germania AG, which had got into economic difficulties. He held the largest share in the publishing house and was able to influence the newspaper accordingly. Another important shareholder was Florian Klöckner .

Like many other newspapers, Germania was temporarily banned after the Nazi regime came to power . In the leading article of February 16, 1933 with the headline “Reminder Call”, the editors urgently and unequivocally called the readers to be aware that the “National Socialist programs are heresies”. On the basis of the ordinance issued by the Reich President on February 4, 1933 for the protection of the German people , the newspaper was then banned for two days from February 18 to February 20, 1933.

On July 2, 1933, Germania had a big headline : “Our Yes to the New Germany”. With this, not only the supervisory board and the editor-in-chief agreed to bring the newspaper into line, with this statement the center publicly declared its self-dissolution. The Germania appeared until December 31, 1938. From December 1934 to 1938 Walter Hagemann was the editor .

Side expenses of Germania AG

The center also published the following periodicals through Germania Aktiengesellschaft :

  • Nordic People's Newspaper (from August 15, 1895 to March 30, 1936)
  • Märkische Volks-Zeitung (from December 15, 1900 to December 31, 1938)
  • German friend of the people (from October 1, 1907 to July 31, 1921)
  • Sächsisches Tageblatt (from February 1, 1911 to December 29, 1929)

Chairwoman of the supervisory board of the publishing house

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annika Klein: Corruption and Corruption Scandals in the Weimar Republic. V&R unipress, 2014, p. 54.
  2. ↑ Jörn Retterath: "What is the people?": People and community concepts of the political center in Germany 1917-1924 (sources and representations on contemporary history). 2016, Appendix I.5 ( books.google.de )
  3. ↑ 1918–1933: The Development of Christian Parties in the Weimar Republic . Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  4. ^ The German Center Party (center) . German Historical Museum
  5. ↑ Emil Ritter's estate , 1881–1968 . ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Contemporary History Commission @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kfzg.de
  6. ↑ Wolfram Pyta, Carsten Kretschmann, Giuseppe Ignesti, Tiziana Di Maio: The Challenge of the Dictatorships: Catholicism in Germany and Italy 1918–1943/45. Walter de Gruyter, 2009, p. 146.
  7. ↑ Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences