Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz

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Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz (born October 3, 1843 in Lübeck , † August 28, 1922 in Stuttgart ) was a publisher and politician of early German social democracy . From 1881 to 1918 he was represented in the Reichstag of the German Empire with a mandate for the SPD (or its predecessor party, the SAPD, until 1890 ) . He founded the JHW-Dietz-Verlag in 1881.

Life

The father Johann Jochim Christian Dietz was a tailor and the mother Anna Catherine Elisabeth came from similar backgrounds. After graduating from school, Dietz completed an apprenticeship as a printer in Lübeck. He then went to St. Petersburg as a printer . There he gained a first insight into the difficult economic situation of the Russian workforce. There he also had first contacts with socialist circles. After his return to Germany in 1866, Dietz worked as a typesetter and factor in Hamburg . At the same time he also joined the socialist-oriented labor movement.

In 1875 Dietz took over the management of the newly founded Hamburg-Altonaer Volksblatt . Between 1881 and 1918 he represented social democracy in the Reichstag.

Under the Socialist Law , Dietz was expelled from Hamburg on October 27, 1880, and on December 31, 1881, he founded the "Verlag JHW Dietz" in Stuttgart . In 1884 Dietz gave up his printing works in Stuttgart because of systematic police harassment and almost daily house searches and left only the publishing business in Stuttgart. Only later did Württemberg adopt a milder practice of the Socialist Law.

Dietz (back row, left) as a member of the socialist parliamentary group from 1889

Dietz supervised the publication of the correspondence between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published the works of social democratic writers, a. a. by August Bebel , Eduard Bernstein , Ferdinand Lassalle and Franz Mehring . During the Socialist Law, but also afterwards, he organized the distribution of socialist literature in Germany .

From 1883 the theoretical socialist journal Die Neue Zeit , edited by Karl Kautsky , appeared in his publishing house . From 1892 to 1917 the socialist women's magazine Die Equality , edited by Clara Zetkin , appeared in his publishing house .

Dietz did extraordinary things to spread Marxism in the social democracy . In numerous internal party controversies, however, he always took a position on the part of the moderate party wing. Looking to balance his life, he was close to the revisionists from the 1890s onwards .

Dietz financed his ambitious publishing program primarily through the widespread social democratic literary satirical sheet Der Wahre Jacob , which he founded in Hamburg in 1879 together with the journalist Wilhelm Blos and which he later continued in Stuttgart.

In 1906 the SPD took over Dietz-Verlag as the central party publisher, which did not change Dietz's publishing commitment.

Further history of the publisher after Dietz's death

After the death of Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz, the publishing house was relocated from Stuttgart to Berlin in 1923 , where it merged with Vorwärts- Verlag in 1924 . After the Second World War, the publishing houses of both parties also merged in the Soviet occupation zone as a result of the forced unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED . The GDR wanted to build on this tradition and founded on June 18, 1946 from the KPD publishers Neuer Weg and the SPD-Verlag forward the JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH . This establishment was rejected by the competent registry court. So, finally, in 1947, the Dietz Verlag GmbH was founded as a new company on August 19, 1947 in Berlin , which was allowed to take its name from the partner and director of the Greifenverlag in Rudolstadt , Karl Dietz . The Dietz-Verlag was the central party publisher of the SED. The SPD in the Federal Republic of Germany, however, founded the JHW Dietz Nachf. Publishing house in Bonn . After the German reunification , there was a legal dispute, which is why the Ost -Dietz-Verlag operates today as Karl-Dietz-Verlag .

literature

  • Karl Kautsky : Heinrich Dietz . In: Die Neue Zeit weekly of the German Social Democracy . Volume 32, Volume 1. Issue 1 of October 3, 1913, pp. 1–8 (digitized version)
  • Hans Lülfing :  Dietz, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 706 ( digitized version ).
  • Eberhard Hackethal: Dietz, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm . In: History of the German labor movement Biographisches Lexikon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 91-93.
  • Max Schwarz : Since 1881. Bibliography published by JHW Dietz Nachfl. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachfl., Berlin / Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1973, DNB 740097776 .
  • Brigitte Emig, Max Schwarz, Rüdiger Zimmermann : Literature for a new reality. Bibliography and history of the publishing house JHW Dietz Nachf. 1881–1981 and the publishing house Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Volksbuchhandlung Hottingen / Zurich, German Cooperative Print, & Publ. Co., London, Berlin workers library, workers youth publisher, publishing cooperative “Freiheit”, Der Bücherkreis . JHW Dietz Nachfl., Berlin, Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-8012-0059-0 .z
  • Christof Rieber: The Socialist Law and Social Democracy in Württemberg 1878-1890. Stuttgart 1984 (Writings on Southwest German Regional Studies 19/1 and 19/2)
  • Christof Rieber: JHW Dietz (1843–1922). In: Siegfried Bassler: With us for freedom. 100 years of the SPD in Stuttgart. 1987, pp. 164-167.
  • Angela Graf : Angela Graf: Johann Heinrich Dietz - publisher of the social democrats: biographical approach to a political life, [Berlin] 1996, DNB 950458058 (dissertation HU Berlin 1996, 313 sheets with illustrations and graphic representations, 30 cm, part of the library of the Börsenverein of the German Book Trade eV Frankfurt am Main).
  • Christof Rieber: The Socialist Law. The criminalization of a party. In: House of History Baden-Württemberg (ed.): Political prisoners in Southwest Germany (= Stuttgart Symposion . Volume 9), Silberburg, Tübingen 2001, pp. 166–194, ISBN 3-87407-382-3 .
  • Gustav Schmidt-Küster (Hrsg.): A life for the poitische book. An almanac for the 120th birthday of Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz, with contributions by Erich Ollernhauer , Anni Geiger-Hof, Karl Kautsky and Heinrich Cunow together with a bibliography by Alexander Blase . J. H-. W. Nachf. Dietz, Hanover 1063.
  • Angela Graf: How it all began. From the foundation of the publishing house to the end of the Weimar Republic. In: Up to the light! 125 years of JHW Dietz Nachf. His history and his books 1881 - 2006. Dietz, Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-8012-0374-3 , pp. 13–57 Voltext online (PDF file from the digital library of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation; free of charge, 45 pages, 176 kB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dietz Verlag. Introduction. On the history of Dietz-Verlag , in: Bundesarchiv, DY30, edited by Andreas Diehl, Andreas Horn, Anja Klimaczewski, accessed on November 17, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Dietz, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1922
Place of death Stuttgart