Hansjörg Weitbrecht (publisher)

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Hansjörg Weitbrecht (born May 6, 1943 in Stuttgart ) is a German publisher and member of the " Business Angels Network Germany eV" (BAND).

Live and act

The son of the publisher and long-time director of the Thienemann publishing house Richard Weitbrecht (1915–1995) studied German , history and political science at the universities in Tübingen and Vienna . After that, Weitbrecht initially started teaching, but was soon appointed by his father in 1971 as a lecturer at the family-run publishing house . From 1975 until it was sold to the Swedish media group Bonnier from Stockholm in 2001, Weitbrecht was the successor to his father as managing partner of the publishing group, which achieved a high level of awareness, especially with its range of children's and young people's books . Weitbrecht is largely responsible for the fact that such important youth book authors as Otfried Preußler , Michael Ende and Max Kruse , whose works were already published under his father Richard and his sister Lotte Weitbrecht , remained closely connected to the publishing group.

In the meantime, Hansjörg Weitbrecht founded Edition Weitbrecht as a subsidiary of Thienemann Verlag in Stuttgart in 1981 , which mainly covered the area of fiction and non-fiction and was renamed Weitbrecht Verlag a little later , as well as smaller branches in Vienna and Bern . Some of the most successful books published by Weitbrecht were Hans Bemmann's fantastic novel “Stein und Flöte”, which appeared in numerous translations, Das Druidentor by Wolfgang Hohlbein and the book series The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges . Furthermore, Hans Jörg Weitbrecht was able to convince Michael Ende, among others, to publish a large part of his successful novels in Edition Weitbrecht and to win the fantasy author Monika Felten as an author.

After Weitbrecht had transferred Thienemann Verlag to the Bonnier Group in 2001, one year later he incorporated his Weitbrecht publishing house into the Piper Verlag in Munich as Imprint Piper Fantasy . In return, in 2003 he and Günter Ehni acquired the rights to Edition Erdmann based in Lenningen , a subsidiary of Thienemann Verlag, also founded in 1981, with a focus on adventure and travel literature . Together with the editor Gudrun Kolb-Rothermel, Weitbrecht built up an independent company again, which, however, was taken over by the Marixverlag Wiesbaden in 2008 .

Hansjörg Weitbrecht is a member of the working group of youth book publishers, which he headed until 1991. In addition, he is a member of the publishers' committee in the regional association and the stock exchange association of the German book trade and, since 1994, the board of trustees of the international youth library . After all, Weitbrecht was one of the German representatives at the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna , where he made a significant contribution to opening up the Chinese market for German children's books in particular. Since 1994 he has been involved in the Rotaryclub Stuttgart-Wildpark.

For his outstanding commitment, Weitbrecht was awarded the Volkacher Taler in 2003 , a prize from the German Academy of Children's and Young Adult Literature in Volkach am Main , and in 2005 he was included in the BAND Heaven of Fame, the Business Angels Network Germany eV based in Food , recorded.

Bibliography (selection)

Adaptations of Hans-Christian Andersen fairy tales

Non-fiction / Festschriften

  • Michael Ende on his 50th [fiftieth] birthday , Stuttgart, Thienemann, 1979
  • Children, how time flies. 150 years of Thienemann ; Stuttgart, Thienemann, 1999, ISBN 3-522-17295-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Club and membership directory of Rotarians in the Federal Republic of Germany 2002/2003
personal data
SURNAME Weitbrecht, Hansjörg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart