Heinz Gotze

Heinz Götze (born August 8, 1912 in Dresden ; † March 2, 2001 in Heidelberg ) was a German publisher at the Springer publishing house .

Götze, whose father was City Treasurer in Dresden, attended the Dreikönigschule in Dresden and then studied classical archeology , history and art history at the universities of Leipzig, Munich and in Naples. In 1938 he received his doctorate in Leipzig with a dissertation on Attic three-figure reliefs. As a post-doctoral student he was at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome , but was drafted into military service in 1939 (Air Force). In 1946 he returned from captivity and in 1949 joined the Springer publishing house as an employee of Ferdinand Springer junior . In 1957 he became (personally liable) managing partner of the publishing house, which he then headed. In 1963 Konrad Ferdinand Springer joined the management team and in 1978 the business graduate Claus Michaletz.

He played a key role in the international expansion of Springer Verlag after the Second World War and consequently took into account the fact that the scientific language was now English. The New York branch was founded in 1964 (which had sales of $ 16 million in 1978) and Eastern Book Services in Japan was acquired in 1978 and a branch was opened in Tokyo in 1983 and others in London (from 1973 own publishing office), Paris (from 1981 with editorial office) and Hong Kong. He also made an early effort to establish contacts with the People's Republic of China. In the late 1990s, 60 percent of publications were in English.

In 1985 the Birkhäuser Verlag was acquired under Götze , in 1974 Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag , 1977 JF Lehmann , 1980 the Verlag Theodor Steinkopff and 1983 the Physica Verlag and in the legal field the Nomos Verlag was added later.

After the academic libraries had to cut their budgets, Götze geared the program more towards students and towards the areas of computer science and software. The Heidelberg Pocket Books series was founded in 1964 and a "Student Edition" was introduced in 1978. In 1998 they published 418 scientific journals (half medical). The Beilstein was one of the many reference works . Electronic availability had been promoted since the 1980s and by the late 1990s almost all of the publisher's journals were available online.

At the end of 1992 Götze and Konrad Ferdinand Springer left the management. Successors were Claus Michaletz, Dietrich Götze (the son of Heinz Götze) and Bernhard Lewerich. Götze and Konrad F. Springer remained personally liable partners.

In 1997, the publisher considered going public because there was a need for considerable investment and the market situation deteriorated, among other things due to savings by the libraries, the competition was fierce and many mergers in the branch resulted. In 1998, the shareholders sold 80 percent of the ordinary shares to Bertelsmann AG for 1 billion DM, where the publishing house was an independent entity. Götze was on the supervisory board. In 1990 sales were 367 million DM (thereof 75 million DM abroad) and in 1998 700 million DM (half abroad), with 2,300 employees.

Götze received the Great Federal Cross of Merit with a Star (1987), the Golden Badge of Honor of the German Book Trade and had several honorary doctorates (Heidelberg, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Dresden). He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Fields Institute in Waterloo and was an honorary citizen of the University of Göttingen . He was also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in London (1992) and Honorary Professor of the Peking Union Medical College.

The marriage to Linde Beckers (marriage 1963) has a son and a daughter. From his first marriage he had his son Dietrich Götze (* 1941), who also became Springer's managing director. Götze was a collector of East Asian art (calligraphy). He lived in Heidelberg.

Web links

• Munzinger (online only partial view)