Heinrich Mohn (publisher)

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Heinrich Mohn (r.) With his father Johannes Mohn and his first son Hans Heinrich in 1913

Carl Heinrich Johannes Mohn (born March 27, 1885 in Gütersloh ; † April 26, 1955 there ) was a German publisher . He represents the fourth generation of the Bertelsmann family .

Life

Heinrich Mohn was the son of Bertelsmann owner Johannes Mohn and his wife Friederike, daughter of the publisher Heinrich Bertelsmann . From 1895 to 1902 he attended the Evangelical Stiftische Gymnasium Gütersloh . After graduating from high school, he did an apprenticeship in bookselling and printing, and traveled to Leipzig , Bern and London to study . In 1912 he married the Gütersloh pastor's daughter Agnes Seippel (* 1889), with whom he had six children: Hans Heinrich (1913–1939), Ursula (1915–2014), Annegret (1916–2011), Siegbert (1918–2002), Reinhard (1921–2009) and Gerhard (* 1926).

Mohn joined the C. Bertelsmann publishing house founded by Carl Bertelsmann as early as 1910 . During the First World War he served as a private in the field artillery, later as an officer in the Imperial Army. In 1921 he took over his father's publishing business. In addition to the theological literature, he gave popular fiction a wider space in the publishing program; first publication in the entertainment sector was the novel "Heimat gegen Heimat" (1929). Since 1927 the magazine “The Christian Narrator” appeared. To mark the centenary of the publishing house in 1935, numerous novels, reasonably priced “people's editions ” and several volumes in the “Das kleine Buch” series were published .

Until at least 1924 Mohn was a member of the German National People's Party . He was also a supporting member of the SS .

As a member of the Confessing Church , Mohn's permission to print religious works was withdrawn in 1938. During the Second World War, Bertelsmann became the most important book supplier for the soldiers at the front with its so-called “ field editions”. Among other things, books by National Socialist authors such as Will Vesper and Hans Grimm were published. With titles such as “ With bombs and MGs over Poland ” and “ Wir funken für Franco ”, the publisher achieved millions of copies. In 1944 the C. Bertelsmann publishing house was forced to close its operations due to allegations of corruption from the Matthias Lackas system . The publishing house was completely destroyed in a bomb attack in 1945. After the reconstruction, Mohn transferred the publishing business to his son Reinhard Mohn in 1947 , who expanded the company into a major multimedia concern.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Saul Friedländer, Norbert Frei, Trutz Rendtorff, Reinhard Wittmann: Bertelsmann in the Third Reich . Bertelsmann, Munich 2002, p. 43.
  2. ↑ Thomas Schuler: Die Mohns: from provincial bookseller to global corporation: the family behind Bertelsmann . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main and New York 2004, p. 77.
personal data
SURNAME Poppy, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mohn, Carl Heinrich Johannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Gutersloh
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1955
Place of death Gutersloh