Hermann Jent

Hermann Jent

Hermann Ludwig Jent (born July 3, 1850 in Solothurn ; † April 28, 1915 in Bern ; resident in Safenwil and Solothurn) was a Swiss publisher and printer .

Life

Jent was the second son of Sophie, born Reinert (1822–1907), daughter of the radical politician and lawyer Johann Baptist Reinert , and of the bookseller and freelance governor Louis Jent ( 1810–1810) who grew up in Neuchâtel , Safenwil and Aarau and trained in Aarau near Sauerland . 1867), who moved from Solothurn to Bern to become the first publisher of the new newspaper Der Bund and also to run a branch of the Solothurn bookstore Jent & Gassmann. Louis Jent died on August 27, 1867. His two sons, Adolf and Hermann, had not yet completed their studies and professional training, which is why their mother took over the management of the business, in which she had been active for a long time.

While his four-year-old son Adolf was doing an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Leipzig , Hermann learned the book printer profession in Vienna as an apprentice and in Leipzig as a trainee at Breitkopf & Härtel in order to prepare for the management of the printing company. Adolf returned to Bern to manage the bookstore in 1870 and Hermann in 1873, and both entered the business as partners in 1874, which their mother ceded to them in 1881 in order to move back to Solothurn. The two brothers initially ran the Bunds publishing house and the printing company together. On February 16, 1894, Adolf Jent died at the age of 47, and the business passed to Hermann Jent. The bookstore was sold in 1898 to Louis Jent's former apprentice Adolf Lüthy; this resulted in the Lüthy Balmer Stocker bookshop . In 1909 the company expanded to form the general partnership H. Jent & Co.

In the 41 years Jents as publisher of the Confederation and head of the printing house, the newspaper developed considerably. It moved from the courtyard building at Spitalgasse 14 over to Neuengasse 9 and gradually took over one floor after the other until it filled the whole house. Jent used the first typesetting machines in Switzerland in 1893 and printed the newspaper for the first time in 1905 on an eight-page rotary press . In November 1910, the federal government was able to move into the new, much larger building on Effingerstrasse.

In Jents time as a publisher Konrad Eggenschwyler and were Michael Buhler chief editors of Bunds . After Jent's death, Bühler also became a co-owner of the publishing house. Jent ensured the greatest possible independence from the Liberal Party , even if he and the editors were members of the party. In the event of a conflict, he stood before the editorial staff without reservation, for example in 1888, when a scandal broke out between the editorial staff and the Bernese "United Liberals": After the federal government had published information from a closed party meeting, the Liberals asked Jent for clarification and an explanation Sorry. When the publisher did not respond to the matter, the liberals threatened to be expelled from the party. For his part, Jent resigned from the party in protest, as did the three-man editorial team, who viewed the procedure as a disregard for their independence. Despite the incident, the connection between the Confederation and the Liberals grew stronger at the end of the 19th century: Eggenschwyler and Bühler, after them Walter Egger and Ernst Schürch , were during their tenure as National Councilors or Grand Councilors, Egger and Schürch were even presidents of the cantonal Liberals.

Jent occasionally granted very generous terms to customers close to him. The Christian Catholic newspaper Der Katholik , for example , owed its existence to them.

Mandates

In 1875 Jent joined the Swiss Book Printing Association (now Viscom ) and was elected to its board of directors in 1879 and president in 1889 when the company moved its headquarters from Zurich to Bern. When he resigned in 1898, the association made him an honorary member. He continued to work for the association, in particular in wage negotiations with the employee associations. After he had already founded the newspaper publishers 'association in the Canton of Bern, he was a co-founder in 1899 and, in 1902, until his death in 1915, president of the Swiss newspaper publishers' association (today the Swiss Media Association ). He was co-founder of the Swiss dispatch agency and its board of directors since it was founded in 1894 and was second president from 1902 until his death in 1915. For many years Jent was also a member of the board of directors of the Biberist AG paper mill .

In 1903 he was the founder and until 1910 President of the Central Office for Apprenticeships, for 25 years he was an honorary treasurer in the consortium of the printing company that published the newspaper for the city of Bern , as well as a member of the school commission of the commercial association. In contrast, he had no interest in political office.

Jent made a particular contribution to the peace of work in the printing trade. As a founder in 1904 and chairman of the unification office in the printing industry for ten years, he was of the opinion that it would be better if employers and employees worked for one another instead of against each other. His work was also recognized by the trade unions such as the Swiss Typographers Association, while his colleagues in the printing house sometimes criticized his kindness towards the employees.

Private

Hermann Jent was married to Louise, born Pfähler (1857–1920) and had a daughter with her, Alice (1881–1970). Whose husband, Fritz Pochon-Jent (1875-1950), took over as successor to Hermann Jent after his death, the leadership of the League , then until her death herself. The couple had a daughter, Marie Louise (1908-1960), wife by Werner Th. Stuber (1900–1957) and mother of Werner H. Stuber (1930–2015), the publisher of the Bund from 1961 to 1993 (the first nine years with his grandmother Alice).

In the Swiss Army , Jent was promoted to major in the infantry and commander of Solothurn Battalion 49 in 1886 and to lieutenant colonel in 1894 . In the last years of his life he was the first deputy of the commandant Bern. He was a member of the Liberal Party .

Jent ill with in spring 1913 pleurisy and did not recover more of it.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gustav Adolf Lang: Jent, Franz Louis. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2008.
2. ↑ ^{a b c In} memory of Hermann Jent. Publisher of the «Bund» Bern. 1850-1915. Buchdruckerei H. Jent & Co., Bern 1915 (the date of birth is incorrectly given here as July 5 instead of July 3, 1850; the first article in the little book also appeared in: Der Bund . April 28, 1915, Abendblatt, p. 1).
3. ↑ The covenant. Anniversary edition for the centenary. No. 468, 144 pp., October 7, 1950, p. 2.
4. ↑ The covenant. Special edition 160 years. September 23, 2010 (archived in newsnetz.ch ; PDF; 1.7 MB).