Josef Zehnder (publisher)

Josef Zehnder (born December 23, 1810 in Birmenstorf , † April 26, 1896 in Baden ) was a Swiss publisher , journalist , printer and politician . He founded several newspapers, including the Badener Tagblatt , and was one of the most influential liberal opinion makers in the canton of Aargau . From 1863 to 1881 he was the mayor of Baden, from 1844 to 1850 and from 1864 to 1884 he was a member of the Grand Council .

biography

Journalism

He was the son of the farmer Johann Zehnder, a member of the Aargau cantonal parliament and community Ammann of Birmenstorf . After Josef Zehnder had completed the teacher training course, he became a teacher in Birmenstorf at the age of 18 . In order to supplement his low wages, he also learned bookbinding and sold books as a sideline; later he began to print these himself in his parents' house. These were mainly reprints and pirated prints .

In 1835 Zehnder moved to Baden , where he opened a printer and a bookshop . At that time a consortium of radical-liberal politicians was formed. They feared that Baden could develop into a center of ultramontanism if a newspaper were not founded soon to disseminate their ideas. The consortium turned to Zehnder, who in 1836 took over the printing and publishing of the Aargauer Volkszeitung . Among other things, the editors took care of the escaped German fraternity, Karl Weddo von Glümer .

The Volkszeitung stopped its publication after three years for financial reasons. Zehnder then founded the Aargauer Zeitung in mid-1839 , which he described as its direct successor. He also worked as an editor . He consistently turned against the Catholic Conservatives, although he did not shy away from abuse and abuse. Only one year later he replaced this publication with the Swiss Village Newspaper , in which he raised the mood against monasteries and Jesuits and supported the free marches. In addition, it served to spread liberal ideas in the rural population using simple language.

Zehnder married Maria Windlein in 1842, who died two years later. In 1845 he married Anna Barbara Wanger. Its numerous enemies in the Catholic-conservative camp denigrated the village newspaper as a "soul killer newspaper". There was a particularly deep rift with the competing publisher Johann Nepomuk Schleuniger . Zehnder led an aggressive smear campaign against him until he had to give up his teaching position in 1844 and moved into exile in Lucerne . He was also at odds with Schleuniger's successor, Xaver Wiederkehr .

In 1848 Zehnder founded the Neue Eidgenössische Zeitung , with which he tried in vain to establish a daily newspaper with a national reputation. In 1856 he merged it with the tourist paper (a pure newsletter with detailed guest lists from Baden's thermal baths ) to form the daily newspaper of the city of Baden . The village newspaper was replaced in 1850 by the Schweizerische Volkszeitung , which served as the headline for the various newspapers of the Zehnder publishing house until 1925 . Finally, the Tagblatt of the city of Baden was renamed the Badener Tagblatt in 1870 . Zehnder-Verlag also published various entertaining publications: Aargauisches Wochenblatt (1839), Das Chatterstäbchen (1842), the Sunday papers (1852 to 1910) and Der Bauernfreund (1862 to 1868).

politics

Zehnder launched in 1838 in Gebenstorf a public meeting with 5,000 participants who had the revision of the cantonal constitution to the goal. He and his father were then arrested, but released a few days later. In December 1840 he was arrested for a further 13 days for defamation. However, this did not prevent the cantonal government from electing him as part-time prison administrator . In 1844 Zehnder was elected to the Grand Council . During the Sonderbund War, he served as a captain in a rifle company. In 1850 he had to resign as a councilor after the Dieboldsche Druckerei, which he had acquired five years earlier, had gone bankrupt (according to the law of the time, he lost his political rights as a result). His third wife Barbara Surlauli, whom he married in 1853, paid off the debt two years later, with which he was rehabilitated.

1862 received Zehnder citizenship of Baden, 1863, he was appointed Stadtammann elected and in 1864 he moved for the second time in the Grand Council a. He was close friends with the church critic Augustin Keller and uncompromisingly represented the government's liberal standpoint during the Kulturkampf of the 1870s. During his tenure, Baden developed into a stronghold of the left-liberal democratic movement , although he did not share its convictions. In his opinion, the expansion of direct democracy would lead to "political slovenliness".

In terms of transport policy, however, Zehnder was entirely on the side of the Democrats and unreservedly supported the Swiss National Railway project . In numerous newspaper articles, he sharply attacked their opponents, in particular the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , which was close to the powerful "railway king" Alfred Escher . For him there was no question that the national railway would be a success, and in 1873 he persuaded the municipal assembly to approve a financial contribution from the city. Three years later, however, additional funding did not come about, although he had campaigned for it. When the national railway went bankrupt in 1878 and had to be liquidated, Zehnder turned against his former companions and claimed that the Winterthur democrats had urged the people of Baden to support the railway project.

As a result of the national railway debacle, Zehnder decided not to run again as mayor in 1881, and three years later he also resigned as a councilor. Over the years he had become politically more moderate and came a little closer to the Catholic Conservatives. As a publisher, he supported the constitutional revision of 1885, which brought reconciliation between the denominations. At the same time, he became increasingly alienated from the democrats, who created new competition in Baden with the newspaper Schweizerische Freie Presse published by Josef Jäger . In 1894 Zehnder sold the publishing house to his grandson Otto Wanner, but continued to write articles until his death. The Wanner family still runs the AZ Medien media company that emerged from Zehnder Verlag .

literature

• Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon of the Canton of Aargau 1803–1957 (=  Argovia . Volume 68/69 ). Sauerländer, Aarau 1958, p. 896-897 .
• Andreas Müller: Josef Zehnder - publisher, journalist and politician . In: 175 years of AZ Medien . AZ Medien , Aarau November 9, 2011, p. 5-7 ( issuu.com [accessed October 5, 2017]).

Web links

• Patrick Zehnder: Zehnder, Josef. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Paul Haber Bosch Wanner: Baden newspapers . In: Association for local history of the Baden district (Hrsg.): Badener Neujahrsblätter . tape 25 . Baden 1950, p. 70-81 .
2. ↑ Hans Peter Bärtschi (Ed.): The National Railway: Vision of a People's Railway . Profile Publishing, Wetzikon 2009, ISBN 978-3-907659-65-1  ( formally incorrect ) , p. 90-91 .