Headquarters for publishers and bookshops

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The main administration for publishing and book trade ( HV ) in the Ministry of Culture was the third level of a decision-making hierarchy for book production and distribution in the GDR , responsible for the allocation of printing paper and the censorship of book products. (See main article: Censorship in the GDR .)

Censorship authority

The "Headquarters Publishing and Book Trade" emerged in 1963 from the "Headquarters Publishing", which was run as the "Department for Literature and Bookstore" from 1958. Until 1956 it was run as the “Office for Literature and Publishing” and is located in the Ministry of Culture. The responsible State Secretary and thus Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Culture was Erich Wendt .

Due to the ordinance on the development of progressive literature , the AGM was responsible for the printing approval process , the allocation of paper quotas and the approval of the publishing programs. As the highest censorship authority in matters of literature , it had the last word and judged whether the political and ideological requirements were met. The HV thus received the entire book trade and the delivery of Leipzig commission and wholesale book trade (LKG) as an area of ​​influence .

Industry line

As a branch of industry with a central state plan , certain publishers and the book trade in the GDR were subordinate to the HV. This included publishers of the mass organizations , such as Aufbauverlag ( Deutscher Kulturbund ), Verlag Kultur und Progress ( Society for German-Soviet Friendship ) and Verlag Neues Leben ( FDJ ), as well as the party’s own publishers, e.g. B. Verlag Volk und Welt , Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle, Rütten & Loening Berlin, Volksverlag Weimar, Das Neue Berlin , Kinderbuchverlag Berlin , Urania Verlag Leipzig, Verlag Die Wirtschaft Berlin, Henschel Verlag and Eulenspiegel-Verlag .

The task was to plan, bill and statistically record the production and distribution of books and brochures. Resources, costs, manpower, goods production and sales were coordinated via interdependence balances. As a representative to the Wood, Paper, Polygraphy Department of the Economics Council , the HV agreed on production issues and the balance sheets of the subordinate companies. For its part, the National Economic Council had to draw up balance sheets. With its planning, the AGM provided the framework within which the individual publishers concluded contracts with printers, binders and the intermediate book trade.

The heads of the AGM were Bruno Haid (1963–1973), Klaus Höpcke (1973–1989) and Karlheinz Selle (1989–1990).

Political control

The institutions of the SED controlled, corrected and drafted the individual actions of the HV. The mixture of party, state and business meant that this control center was preceded by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the SED and, at the highest level, the Politburo of the SED . In addition to the tasks of the HV, the Politburo of the GDR laid down the strategic specifications for the content and organizational design. The GDR Council of Ministers regulated these tasks and ordinances by law.

The HV was founded on January 1st, 1963. The HV's powers were developed in 1962 by the Ministry of Culture and submitted to the Politburo of the SED. A subsequent Politburo resolution established binding control competence in the state sector for book production. The economic, cultural-political and ideological control and management of the publishing houses should be brought together by this new institution. In addition, independent profiling, especially in the case of fiction, should be prevented and competition between the publishers prevented.

literature

  • Siegfried Lokatis : The Mitteldeutsche Verlag in Halle, in: Simone Barck and Stefanie Wahl (eds.): Bitterfelder Nachlese. A palace of culture, its conferences and effects, with unpublished letters from Franz Fühmann . Berlin 2007. pp. 113-130.
  • Simone Barck , Martina Langermann, Siegfried Lokatis (eds.): Every book is an adventure! Censorship system and literary public in the GDR until the end of the sixties. Berlin 1997
  • Siegfried Lokatis: The main administration of the reading country. in: From politics and contemporary history : Reading country GDR. 11/2009, pp. 23-31.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegfried Lokatis: The Mitteldeutsche Verlag in Halle, in: Simone Barck and Stefanie Wahl (eds.): Bitterfelder Nachlese. A culture palace, its conferences and effects, with unpublished letters from Franz Fühmann, Berlin 2007. pp. 118 ff.
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 122
  3. ^ "Ordinance on the Development of Progressive Literature" (August 16, 1951) Journal of Laws No. 100, August 27, 1951, p. 785.
  4. ^ Lokatis: The Central German publishing house in Halle. P. 126 f.
  5. ↑ Christoph Links: The fate of the GDR publishers. Privatization and its consequences. Berlin 2013, p. 30.