Joseph E. Drexel

Joseph Eduard Drexel (born June 6, 1896 in Munich , † April 13, 1976 in Nuremberg ) was an opponent of the regime during the time of National Socialism and later founder of the Nürnberger Nachrichten .

Live and act

Origin and education

Joseph Eduard Drexel, son of the businessman Joseph Drexel and his wife Amalie Drexel, née Graf, was baptized a Catholic and spent his childhood in Munich at the turn of the century, where he attended the first class of the community school . In Nuremberg, where his father was transferred in 1903, he attended the remaining three classes of the citizen school and then eight classes of the Real Reform High School. In 1914 Drexel passed the matriculation examination in what is now the Willstätter-Gymnasium in Nuremberg .

Military service

When the First World War broke out , Drexel reported on August 4, 1914 in Munich as a volunteer for army service. In November 1914 he was transferred to the front troops (Flieger -teilung 5b), served as a radio operator and stayed there until January 1917. Drexel reports on an experience of chivalry: After the crash of the famous fighter pilot Max Immelmann , an English plane was flying low flew the airfield and dropped a large tin container. Inside there was a wreath and a letter, the translated text of which Drexel quotes:

“We came over to throw off this wreath as a token of the respect the British Flying Corps has for Lieutenant Immelmann. We consider it an honor to have been selected for this special assignment. Lieutenant Immelmann was highly respected by all British aviators. Everyone agrees that he was a real sportsman. "

The pilot and his observer signed the letter.

In January 1917 Drexel was transferred to the Aviation Replacement Department in Schleissheim as an observer teacher. In September 1917 he was transferred to the staff of the A. O. K. II South Border Guard as an intelligence officer. After the end of the war and the outbreak of the revolution, Drexel retired from military service.

Study and job

In the winter semester of 1918/19, he began studying law and philosophy at the University of Munich, including economics (today: economics ). He studied six semesters in Munich and later another six semesters at the University of Erlangen . Drexel was deeply impressed by the economist Max Weber , whom he heard in the winter semester of 1919/20.

Studies were interrupted several times when Drexel joined military volunteer organizations, the Kdv. Hacker, the Freikorps Epp and the headquarters company of the Bavarian Rifle Brigade 21. In the Freikorps Oberland he was involved as an intelligence officer in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic .

In addition, after the untimely death of his father, Drexel had to earn the money for his studies as a student trainee through a series of side jobs in the press and political organizations. In November 1919/20 he received a position as a consultant at the Nuremberg branch of the Foreign Office (Department X); later he took over the position of the Syndikus of the local group Nuremberg of the Bavarian Industrial Association e. V. In November 1922 he got a job in industry.

When Drexel's financial reserves dwindled due to inflation, a Nuremberg patron, the general director of MAN , Reichsrat Anton von Rieppel (1852–1926), financed the remainder of the course. Drexel was in 1923 at the faculty of economics at the University of Erlangen with a thesis on NGOs for the promotion of foreign trade to the Dr. rer. pole. PhD. In the same year he married Elisabeth Roesch.

He then worked as a research assistant in the foreign trade department of the Foreign Office in Berlin and then as a commercial clerk in managerial positions in industry, wholesale and banking. a. since 1929 with the Nürnberger Lebensversicherungsbank (Nürnberger Versicherungen), where he was promoted to authorized signatory.

Friendship and political cooperation with Ernst Niekisch

In 1923 Drexel joined the Oberland federal government and had been in the federal leadership and district leader of Middle Franconia since 1925. As a speaker, the later Nazi opponent gave a lecture on "German space shortage" in April 1927 at the Oberland leaders' conference at " Hoheneck Castle ". In 1925 Drexel met the former elementary school teacher and chairman of the Bavarian Central Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils, Ernst Niekisch, at an Oberland conference. The two became friends and a political collaboration ensued. a. at the journal Resistance published by Niekisch and A. Paul Weber . Journal for national-revolutionary politics , which sharply criticized National Socialism before and during the Third Reich, from 1926 until it was banned in December 1934, as well as on the weekly decision. The weekly newspaper for national revolutionary politics , which was also published by the resistance publishing house.

The resistance group around Ernst Niekisch had its focus in the Nuremberg group around Drexel and the government councilor in the customs service Karl Tröger . This group continued to work underground after 1933. As head of the Bavarian resistance movement, Drexel illegally published an information service in 1935.

In pre-trial detention and concentration camps

After a spy betrayed the group, Drexel was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1937 a few days after his return from a skiing holiday at dawn and transferred to their control center. A few hours later, his wife and then secretaries and other coworkers and friends were also arrested. More than a hundred other suspects were arrested across Germany. Drexel spent seven months in custody in the Deutschhaus barracks in Nuremberg . In his cell, Julius Streicher had the slogan painted in Gothic script on all four walls: "I'm a very mean pig, that's why I'm rightly locked up."

In October 1937 Drexel was transferred to Berlin-Moabit , where he was held in custody for another sixteen months. In January 1939 Drexel was indicted before the People's Court before the First Senate under the notorious President Otto Georg Thierack, together with Niekisch and Tröger, because of the preparation for high treason and the forbidden formation of new parties. During the trial, from which the public was excluded, but which was attended by Gauleiter Julius Streicher, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris appeared accompanied by his adjutant Rudolf Graf von Marogna-Redwitz , a Franconian . You had been requested by the court as an expert. In Drexel's opinion, Canaris saved the life of Drexel, who was unknown to him, through his statements. After seven days of trial, Drexel was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for preparation for high treason. After the verdict was announced, Julius Streicher walked past the dock and said to Drexel: "I'll make sure that you don't see the sun again."

Drexel served his sentence in the Amberg penal institution. He was then immediately arrested again by the Gestapo and expelled from Bavaria. Drexel fled to Innsbruck to his friend Ludwig von Ficker , the editor of the magazine Der Brenner . From there Drexel was deported to Stuttgart, where he was observed by the Gestapo under difficult conditions. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Drexel was arrested again. He was brought to Nuremberg and finally with the notation “RU” ( return undesirable ) to the Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz and later from there to the Flossenbürg concentration camp . At the turn of the year 1944/45 Drexel was released to Nuremberg under conditions on the intervention of the then Nuremberg Police President Benno Martin .

Drexel wrote a report in the early summer of 1945 about his martyrdom and that of many others in Mauthausen concentration camp. It was only published in 1961 on Drexel's 65th birthday, but only as a private print in a small edition as a gift from the printing house in Nuremberg under the title - which disguises the true facts -: Die Reise nach Mauthausen . Only after Drexel's death did Wilhelm Raimund Beyer publish the report in 1978 under the title: Return undesirable. Joseph Drexel's “Journey to Mauthausen” and the Ernst Niekisch resistance group .

Lyric poet

During his pre-trial detention, Drexel u. a. Poems, for example Im Kerker , which appeared in 1946 in the anthology De Profundis published by Desch-Verlag in Munich, a comprehensive collection of poetry by 66 writers who were unable or unwilling to emigrate during the Third Reich. Drexel himself refers to his poems in "Böhms Lyrikbuch" (Ed. Ferdinand Avenarius), 1952. Finally, in 1966 Max von Brück published Drexel's poems and prose in Tat und Traum .

Foundation of the Nürnberger Nachrichten

In 1945 Drexel received license No. 3 for a newspaper publisher from the American military government in Bavaria and founded the Nürnberger Nachrichten (NN), then the Fürther Nachrichten , to which he added other daily newspapers and the Olympia Verlag in the following years . With a series of headers, the NN became the market-dominant northern Bavarian newspaper.

Drexels Buchverlag Verlag Nürnberger Presse , which publishes books primarily on Nuremberg and Franconia and their history, art, culture, literature, dialect and economy, was and is also known and successful .

Not all Drexels companies were successful. Drexel and his partner Heinrich G. Merkel gave the franc mirror in 1950 . Monthly publication for intellectual life in Franconia . In 1951 it was only a two-month publication. Then this publication came in.

Political position

Fritz Aschka, a companion Drexel, commented on his ideological location: "Some post-war contemporaries considered Drexel to be a 'leftist', they were already wrong by wanting to classify him." Drexel did not allow himself to be reduced to one line with his contradictions . Drexel himself opposed the fact that the " Ernst Niekisch resistance movement " should be classified under the collective name " National Bolshevism ". Since 1932 there have been many different resistance groups across the Reich. Its members were composed of all classes and the most varied of political beliefs. Drexel was a fighter for humanist ideals and against fascist arbitrariness.

An event shortly before Drexel's death in 1976 proves Drexel's political position: the Nuremberg city council had unanimously decided to give Drexel honorary citizenship on his 80th birthday. At the same time, however, the East Berlin Humboldt University had made Drexel an honorary doctorate. The Nuremberg CSU parliamentary group chairman then informed Drexel that approval of the granting of honorary citizenship could no longer be upheld if he accepted the honorary doctorate from East Berlin. Drexel rejected that. He reminded the Nuremberg CSU on the one hand of the CDU's Ahlen program , in which it says: “The capitalist economic system has not done justice to the state and social interests of the German people. [...] The content and goal of a social and economic reorganization can no longer be the capitalist striving for profit and power, but only the well-being of our people. "

On the other Drexel referred to the victims of the Communists in the anti-fascist struggle and their charitable fraternal behavior: "It is such. B. in the nature of the matter, although at least with us there is a kind of embarrassed conspiracy of silence not to lose sight of the fact that the numerically highest victims in the anti-fascist struggle - if one disregards the genocide of the Jews - go to the workers had brought, and within the working class again the communists. It was also the communists who did not leave me alone in both camps [the Mauthausen and Flossenbürg concentration camps] during the most difficult time of my life. Although I was never her comrade. They knew how to instill courage in me in situations in which my life was no longer worth a damn. [...] To forget that would be simply impossible for me. There in the tyranny of tyranny, I learned that there has always been a brotherhood of people who are responsible for the ungrateful business of Caritas and to save the torch of hope through the darkness of time. "

Founder Joseph E. Drexel

On the occasion of his 60th birthday, Drexel founded the Joseph E. Drexel Foundation in 1956 , which awarded the Joseph E. Drexel Prize from 1957 to 1989 . The foundation honored outstanding work in the field of press in the broadest sense. The foundation included the entire area of ​​journalism, image reporting, the artistic, photographic and typographical design of a publication organ as part of the press system.

Joseph E. Drexel gave the city of Nuremberg in his will an amount of one million marks for free disposal. After the death of Joseph E. Drexel in 1977, she founded the “Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph-E.-Drexel ".

Honors

• 1962 honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg
• 1966 honorary citizenship certificate of the community of Stauf bei Thalmässing , district of Roth
• 1976 honorary citizen of the city of Nuremberg
• 1976 Honorary doctorate from the Humboldt University in Berlin

Works

• State organizations to promote foreign trade. Dissertation, Economics Faculty of the University of Erlangen, day of the oral examination: July 11, 1923 (122 pages, typewritten, call number: 4 U 23.2126).
• Henry L. Mencken : Democracy Mirror. [Sole authorized] translation by DS Kellner. [Foreword by Joseph Drexel]. With lithographs by A. Paul Weber . Resistance Verlag, Berlin 1930 (XI, 142 pages).
• Hans Tröbst (ed.): Stecowa. Fantastic and supernatural from the world war. With 6 pen drawings by A. Paul Weber. Verlag Tradition Wilhelm Kolk, Berlin 1932 (205 pages; employees: Werner Bergengruen , Arnolt Bronnen , Josef Drexel, Gustav Goes, Hans Henning Freiherr Grote, Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz , Friedrich Hielscher , Ernst Johannsen , Edlef Köppen , Karl Nils Nicolaus, Franz Schauwecker , Goetz Otto Stoffregen , Karl Hans Strobl , Hans Tröbst, Josef Magnus Wehner , Ernst Wiechert ).
• The Joseph E. Drexel Prize 1956–1966. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1966 (131 pages).
• City of Nuremberg, Kunsthalle (ed.): Ten years of the Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph E. Drexel. Druckhaus Nürnberg, Nürnberg 1987 (46 pages).
• Joseph E. Drexel (ed.): Ludwig von Ficker to commemorate his 80th birthday. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg [1960] (20 pages; contains Ficker's speech of thanks for the award of an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin and Heidegger's speech during the subsequent celebratory dinner).
• The trip to Mauthausen. A report. "Dr. Joseph Drexel printed on the occasion of his 65th birthday and dedicated by Druckhaus Nürnberg. ”Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nürnberg 1961 (207 pages; private print made in a small edition; according to Drexel's foreword, a report about his experiences in Mauthausen concentration camp in the early summer of 1945 to find out about the To free the nightmare of the suffered).
• The Niekisch case. A documentation (Information, Vol. 11). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne / Berlin 1964 (208 pages; with bibliography E. Niekisch, pp. 12-14).
• Resistance group Niekisch (unprinted manuscript - see Beer: Resistance, p. 383).
• Max von Brück (Ed.): Act and dream. Poems - prose. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1966 (177 pages).
• History and stories - a life in Franconia . Lecture: Bayerischer Rundfunk, Studio Nürnberg, March 27, 1969. Verlag Nürnberger Presse Druckhaus Nürnberg GmbH & Co., Nürnberg 1969 (38 pages; private printing - Drexel gives a historical overview of the 20th century, especially for Germany and Bavaria, and provides his personal résumé in this context and makes general comments on the basic questions of human coexistence).
• With the grandparents. Happy childhood . Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1971 (80 pages - Drexel reports on his childhood in Munich on Müllerstrasse and Weinstrasse; front title with sticker "Written in the Gestapo detention Berlin-Moabit 1937–1939").
• Responsibility before history . Articles, commentaries, glosses from the years 1929 to 1970. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1971, ISBN 3-920701-33-X (356 pages; selection from Drexel's journalistic work, published on the occasion of Drexel's 75th birthday; mostly in the sheets Resistance , Decision and Nürnberger Nachrichten published works: Nothing New in the West (1929), Nationalism and Strike (1930), André François-Poncet (1931), Revolt of the SA against the Swamp (1933), The Steel Helmet (1933), Hitler and Gerling-Konzern (1933) the problem of education proletariat (1933), the Ministry of propaganda (1933), the war as a crime (1945), July 20 (1946), the Eichmann trial (1961), the United States in Vietnam (1964), Quo Vadis Amerika? (1966), Der Sozialistische Studentenbund (1968), obituary for Ernst Niekisch , † 23 May 1967, pp. 308–311, picture of life: Joseph E. Drexel, p. 351 fu a.) .
• Kurt Kauenhoven (ed.): Greetings to Wilhelm Geißler . A friend's gift for his 75th birthday. With contributions by Artur Buschmann, Werner Helwig , HAP Grieshaber , Eugen Skasa-Weiß , Josef E. Drexel, Frans Masereel , Hans Pape and others. Private printing by Woensampresse, Essen 1970 (63 pages).
• Aging, an examination of one's conscience . Speech on the occasion of his 75th birthday on June 6, 1971. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1971 (31 pages).
• The group "Resistance" in Nuremberg and Franconia . In: Hermann Schirmer : The other Nuremberg. Antifascist resistance in the city of the Nazi party rallies (library of the resistance). Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, here: pp. 159–168 (255 pages).
• Wilhelm Raimund Beyer (Ed.): Return undesirable. Joseph Drexel's “Journey to Mauthausen” and the Ernst Niekisch resistance group. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-421-01846-4 (331 pages; a literary document of the inhuman).
• Voyage à Mauthausen. Le cercle de la résistance de Nuremberg. Traduit de l'allemand by Wanda Vulliez. Éditions France-Empire, Paris 1981 (283 pages).
• Manfred Buhr, Joseph E. Drexel, Werner Jakusch (Eds.): Wilhelm Raimund Beyer . A bibliography. With an appendix: WR Beyer “From the History of the International Hegel Society”. 2nd Edition. Europaverlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1967, 1972 (78 pages); 3., added u. again expanded edition, 1982, ISBN 3-203-50793-5 (136 pages).

literature

• Helmut Beer: Drexel, Joseph E., Dr. rer. pole. In: Michael Diefenbacher , Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg . 2nd, improved edition. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-921590-69-8 , p. 224 f . ( online ).
• Helmut Beer: Resistance to National Socialism in Nuremberg 1933–1945 . At the same time: Dissertation at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Department of Philosophy, History and Social Sciences, 1976 (Nuremberg workpieces on city and state history; Vol. 20). Stadtarchiv, Nürnberg 1976, ISBN 3-87432-043-X (X, 398 pages; therein the chapter: "The Nuremberg group of the Niekisch resistance movement around Dr. Joseph Drexel and Karl Tröger", pp. 236-278).
• Clemens Wachter: Joseph E. Drexel . In: Franconian pictures of life. New series of résumés from Franconia (publications of the Society for Franconian History VII A). Neustadt / Aisch 2000, Volume 18, pp. 337-353.
• Lotte Foth, Ludwig Baer, ​​Heinrich Sperl: People and encounters . Dr. Joseph E. Drexel on his 60th birthday [Greetings from the friends on June 6, 1956]. Self-published by the editors, Nuremberg 1956 (106 pages; private print; contributions by Ernst Niekisch, Max-Hermann Bloch , Max von Brück, Sigmund Graff , Wolfgang Gurlitt , Egon Jameson , Armin Mohler , Karl Otto Paetel , Rudolf Schlichter , Max Stefl , Otto , among others Ziegler).
• The horizon. Joseph Drexel on his 60th birthday . Beck, Munich 1956 (VII, 218 pages; contributions by Friedrich Heer : European nonconformism , Ernst Niekisch: The clerk. Its shape and function , Max Bense : The creative process in technical reality , Max von Brück: The decline of utopia , Wilhelm R. Beyer: Hegel - newspaper publisher and philosopher in Franconia , Thomas Mann : Three letters , J. Lesser: Thomas Mann's Joseph tetralogy ).
• Wolfgang Gurlitt: A life with pictures . Cross section through a collection. Paintings, sculptures, graphics, with numerous illustrations. Accompanying text v. Wolfgang Gurlitt. Published on the occasion of Joseph E. Drexel's 65th birthday. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nürnberg undated [1961] (82 sheets - the work presents 90 works from the "Drexel Collection").
• Ernst Niekisch, Hans Walter, Wilhelm Puff , Hermann Scheler, Ludwig von Ficker , Heinrich G. Merkel, Fabian von Schlabrendorff , Max von Brück, Helmut Lindemann, Wilhelm R. Beyer: The friends and the friend . Joseph E. Drexel on his 70th birthday, June 6, 1966. Nürnberger Presse publishing house, Nuremberg 1966 (51 sheets).
• Wilhelm Raimund Beyer (Ed.): Homo homini homo . Festschrift for Joseph E. Drexel on his 70th birthday. Beck, Munich 1966 (327 pages).
• The Joseph E. Drexel Prize [1956–1966] . Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1966 (131 pages).
• Collection Dr. Joseph E. Drexel . Painting, graphics, plastic. Kunstverein Erlangen [catalog editor: Hildegard Grau]. Kunstverein, Erlangen [1978?] (Exhibition catalog, 72 pages).
• City of Nuremberg, Kunsthalle (ed.): Ten years of the Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph E. Drexel . Nuremberg 1987 (45 pages).
• Dr. Dr. hc Joseph E. Drexel * June 6th, 1896 † April 13th, 1976 . Commemorative speeches on the day of his funeral, April 17, 1976, Meistersingerhalle Nuremberg, collected for his friends. Self-published, Nuremberg 1976 (22 sheets; memorial words by Max von Brück, Willy Prölß, Fritz Pirkl and others).

Web links

• Literature by and about Joseph E. Drexel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Brenner archive of the University of Innsbruck

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b c} CV of Joseph E. Drexel. In: Joseph E. Drexel: State organizations for the promotion of foreign trade. Dissertation, University of Erlangen, 1923, p. 101.
2. ↑ Joseph E. Drexel: History and stories - A life in Franconia. Verlag Nürnberger Presse, Nuremberg 1969, p. 10 f.
3. ↑ Joseph E. Drexel: History and stories - A life in Franconia. 1969, p. 14 f.
4. ↑ Drexel, Joseph E. In: Who is who? The German who's who. 1969/70, p. 225.
5. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , p. 57.
6. ↑ Helmut Beer: Resistance to National Socialism in Nuremberg 1933-1945. Nuremberg 1976, p. 362.
7. ↑ More details on Karl Tröger in: Helmut Beer: Resistance against National Socialism in Nuremberg 1933–1945. Nuremberg 1976, p. 362 f.
8. ↑ Joseph E. Drexel: History and stories - A life in Franconia. 1969, p. 18 f.
9. ↑ Fritz Aschka: The founder Dr. Joseph E. Drexel. In: Ten Years Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph E. Drexel. Nuremberg 1987.
10. ↑ Joseph E. Drexel: The journey to Mauthausen. Nuremberg 1961, p. 7.
11. ↑ Saving the Torch of Hope. A memory of the Nuremberg newspaper publisher Joseph E. Drexel. (No longer available online.) VVN - BdA Bayern, November 21, 2006, formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 11, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
12. ↑ Statutes for the Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph E. Drexel from June 22, 1977. In: Ten Years of Art and Culture Foundation Dr. Joseph E. Drexel. Nuremberg 1987.
13. ↑ Elsewhere Drexel gives the topic of his doctoral thesis: "State foreign trade promotion in England". See Joseph E. Drexel: History and stories - A life in Franconia. 1969, p. 15.