JG Oncken Nachf.
| JG Oncken Nachf. GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1828 |
| Seat | kassel |
| management | Silke Tosch ( Managing Director ) |
| Branch | Book publisher |
| Website | www.oncken.de |
The JG Oncken Nachf. GmbH publishing house is a Kassel- based Christian media company that is affiliated with the Association of Evangelical Free Churches (BEFG).
history
In 1828 Johann Gerhard Oncken founded a mail order bookstore in Hamburg . Oncken had worked in Hamburg since 1823 as an agent of the Continental Society, a society that wanted to promote the revival movement on the continent with inexpensive Bible editions and edification literature . In 1834 he founded the first Baptist church on the European continent.
After sales of missionary writings collapsed in connection with a leadership dispute in the Union of Baptists, the publisher was on the verge of insolvency in the 1870s. German-American Baptists then sent the publishing director of their association, Philipp Bickel, to Hamburg as a crisis manager at their own expense . In 1878 he arranged for the publishing house to be transferred from Oncken's private property to the Baptist Union - but initially in his name due to the lack of corporate rights. He managed to rehabilitate the publishing house within a decade. The children's newspaper Der Morgenstern , which is part of the publisher's Christian Traktatgesellschaft, as well as the children's song book Das Singvögelein , which is published by the publisher, are among the most formative elements in the history of the German Baptists.
In 1897, at the Baptist Federal Conference, it was decided to relocate the publishing house to Kassel. Hamburg had already been excluded in advance because the administration and theological training of the Baptists were already located there and an increasing centralism was feared, which did not seem to fit the self-image of the federal government. The publisher has now been able to transfer half of its profits to the federal government. The publisher's property was secured by a partnership agreement with Bickel in favor of the federal government. The move to Kassel to a newly built office building took place in 1899. In its prime, the publishing house employed 120 people there until the building was destroyed on October 22, 1943 in the bombing of Kassel. After the demolition of the publishing house, the publishing house was initially operated temporarily, partly in Kassel-Niederzwehren (management) and partly in Stuttgart (production). In 1949 a private house could be rented as a new publishing house, which was acquired in 1953 by the Bund , which was renamed the Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinde (BEFG) in 1942 .
Locations in Wuppertal and Kassel
In 1970 book production in Kassel was ended. In cooperation with R. Brockhaus Verlag , Oncken Verlag remained in Wuppertal. In the meantime, both publishers have become part of the Christian Media Foundation and the Oncken Verlag range specializing in gift volumes for SCM Collection .
However, the takeover of Rolf Kühne Verlag in 1973 made it possible to resume small book production at the Kassel location. Despite renovations, additions and improvisation, there were limits to the development of the publishing house in Kassel. There was no permit for a structural expansion in the residential area. In the 1980s, the decision was made to build a new building in an industrial park in the Bettenhausen district, which went into operation in 1992.
In 2006 the Federal Council of the BEFG decided to separate from Oncken Verlag. The shares were transferred to the Oncken Foundation . The foundation was established in 2002 by congregations and individuals to strengthen the publisher's missionary and journalistic work. From 2006, Heinz Sager, the former Federal Director of the BEFG, who also served as Managing Director of Oncken Verlag from 2003 and was replaced by Silke Tosch as Managing Director after his retirement in 2019, was chairman of the Foundation's board of directors.
Today the publisher has around 20 employees. In addition to running a mail order bookstore, magazines and books are produced.
Insolvency and takeover by Blessings 4 you GmbH
Since April 2019, both the mail order bookstore and the magazine sales have been part of "Blessings 4 you" in Stuttgart, the service provider within the Methodist Church (UMC), following a partial transfer of business.
As of December 19, 2019, the publisher was in preliminary insolvency proceedings, as restructuring attempts should not have shown the desired success by then. Since March 2020 he has continued his work as "Oncken Verlag" under the umbrella of "Blessings 4 you GmbH" in Stuttgart. The seven employees continue to work from Kassel, administration is carried out from Stuttgart. “Blessings 4 you” emerged from the book trade work of the Evangelical Methodist Church , which was sold in 2005 to the current managing directors Tobias Blessing and Angela May.
gallery
Christian bookstore Johann Gerhard Onckens in Hamburg, nucleus of the Oncken publishing house
National Bible Society Hamburg-Borgfelde , forerunner of Oncken-Verlag
Former publishing house of the Onckenverlag in Kassel, Jägerstrasse
literature
- Günter Balders: Dear brother Oncken. Life of Johann Gerhard Oncken in pictures and documents. Wuppertal / Kassel 1978, ISBN 3-7893-7871-2 .
- Günter Balders (Ed.): One Lord - One Faith - One Baptism - 150 Years of Baptist Congregations in Germany. Wuppertal / Kassel 1985, ISBN 3-7893-7883-6 .
- Hans-Volker Sadlack: Searching for clues . A travelguide. Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-87939-156-1 .
- The community magazine . Kassel 2003, No. 3 and 4 (on the 175th anniversary of Oncken Verlag)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Oncken gives up mail order bookstore and magazine sales, boersenblatt.net, notification of February 18, 2019.
- ↑ Baptistischer Oncken Verlag in preliminary insolvency , idea.de, notification from December 31, 2019.
- ↑ Restructuring: Baptistischer Oncken-Verlag in Kassel sold , pro-medienmagazin.de, notification of March 5, 2020.
- ↑ After preliminary insolvency: Oncken Verlag in Kassel sold , idea.de, notification from March 4, 2020.