Cologne Court Newspaper
| Cologne Court Newspaper | |
|---|---|
|
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| description | Weekly newspaper about crime |
| publishing company | Keller and Rawitz, Römer & Trablé, Römer |
| First edition | 1884 |
| attitude | January 27, 1934 |
| Frequency of publication | Saturdays |
| Editor-in-chief | Jean Fries (1903), Peter Fries (1920) |
| ZDB | 1122298-0 |
The Kölner Rechts-Zeitung was an illustrated weekly newspaper for the Cologne area that dealt with local and international criminal cases. Court reporters followed negotiations in Cologne and Bonn for the newspaper. Dialogues between judges, defendants and witnesses from the court record occupied the largest part of the paper. The Rechts-Zeitung tried to serve the legally oriented reader, but its target group was a mass audience interested in public scandals and light entertainment. The editors often commented on the verdicts of large trials with remarks denouncing the convicts. In this respect, the Cologne court newspaper was a tabloid . It was published (with two year-long interruptions) from 1884 to 1934.
history
The Kölner Rechts-Zeitung was launched by the Keller und Rawitz publishing house in early 1884, changed hands in 1889 (other sources speak of 1887) and was published by Römer & Trablé, also in Cologne, until September 1903. From October 1903 to April 1915, the name of the newspaper was changed to "Cologne Court Newspaper and Rhenish Criminal Newspaper". Probably due to the war , the paper was no longer published from 1916 and on March 12, 1921 again under the old name at the Röder publishing house in Cologne. The last edition (46.1934) came on January 27, 1934. The DC circuit of the media by the Nazis were numerous, previously established leaves victim. However, the reasons in the case of the Kölner Rechts-Zeitung are unknown.
Example 1903
The issues of 1903 always appeared on Saturdays, comprised eight pages and cost 10 pfennigs with the “illustrated entertainment supplement” . The J. Röder publishing house and the print shop were located at Hämergasse 37 in Cologne city center. The paper typically began with a re-enactment of a crime scene, the February 28, 1903 issue with a photo-based illustration of a man condemned to death in a circumstantial trial making a confession on his knees in his cell; his defense attorney puts a comforting hand on his head; In the background a policeman armed with a rifle is watching the scene. Illustrations of those involved in the process, such as the presiding judge, are incorporated into this large-format image. Since it is not a local case from Cologne, but from Vienna, the front page sends the reader straight back to page 5, where "an extremely interesting circumstantial trial against a father" is described.
“... who was accused of murdering his illegitimate seven week old child. The case is particularly curious for two reasons. Firstly, because the criminal act took place under mysterious circumstances, to which only a painstaking investigation has found the key. Second, however, because the trial only rose to the peak of interest when the trial ended and the offender, convicted with ten votes against two, was already in the killer cell. "
A judicial council, the article goes on, advised the convicted Kunschner's attorney to draw his attention to possible mitigating circumstances if he confessed to the murder:
“The defense attorney went straight to Kunschner, who was taken to the isolation cell for the meeting. 'Speak to me,' said the defense attorney, 'freely and openly the full truth. I will only inform the President of this if you authorize me to do so. Without this authority you will have spoken to me like a confessor. ' Kunschner was visibly moved, an inner struggle showed in his features. He then cried, and first of all said, 'I am going to make you a confession. I did it by accidentally banging the child on the door and dragging it on the floor. [...] I will tell you the full truth, 'he declared and could hardly speak with movement; 'Yes, it's all true; I really threw the child against the bed with the intention of killing him. '"
The court correspondents covered the area of Cologne and Bonn. The Rechts-Zeitung of February 21, 1903 summarized the “this year's first jury trial period” of the Bonn jury court in a long article by
- a street robbery ("five young boys from Bonn, Recklinghausen and Cologne"),
- a "milk counterfeit" (a dairy farmer diluted the delivered milk with up to 48% water),
- a "so-called haunted house" (... "in Bonn, Webernstrasse 39, the ghosts were up to mischief once again. This time, however, they were caught."),
- a "dangerous firefighter" (who seriously injured a colleague with a harness with a hook attached),
- a “children's savings bank” (a teacher collected 47 marks in a cash register, a dismissed student climbed in through the window and stole the money.)
acted. Only the first negotiations of the year did not seem worth reporting to the paper, because it was about "emergency breeding".
The court minutes with precisely reproduced exchanges of words in front of the court play a central role in the Kölner Rechts-Zeitung; they gave the reader the impression of the competence of the paper:
- Accused Husband Ginster: I didn't take care of the dairy farm.
- Pres .: Bad enough, who cares?
- Affiliated: my wife
- Pres .: Does your wife deliver the milk personally?
- Affected: Mostly yes, but I've already delivered some myself.
- Pres .: And you claim that you do not know anything about the added water?
- Affected: No, I had no idea about it.
- Pres .: You defendant, is that correct what your husband said?
- Accused Wife Gorse: Yes, my husband didn't know about it; I had no idea that adding water was a criminal offense, because we only supplied so-called baker's milk.
- Pres .: Baker's milk? What do you mean by that? The term baker's milk is new to me. What did you get per liter?
- Attached: 15 Pfg.
- Pres .: That's a regular normal price. Less is paid for so-called skimmed milk. Do you admit that instead of the ten liters you ordered, you repeatedly delivered nine or even eight liters?
- Affected: That may have happened when we had too little milk.
- Pres .: [...] The witness Lucas is to come into the room.
The paragraph on the milk counterfeiters ends with the verdict: The husband was acquitted of the milk counterfeiting but sentenced to one week in prison for fraud. The wife, on the other hand, got two weeks for falsified milk. In addition, the court ordered a "publication of the judgment", apparently in order to make an example.
In the column called “Feuilleton”, the newspaper contained a serial: “Das Diadem des Verderbens” by Hermann Hirschfeld, as well as the “Mailbox”, which only contains a few lines and is used to respond to reader inquiries.
“Emil, Brabanterstrasse. Cigarettes are not unhealthy if they are not rolled from tobacco that is too heavy; in Paris one smokes a lot of caporal tobacco, which is very heavy, and Professor Sallin has noted the following heart problems; Egyptian tobacco is beneficial, but drawing smoke into the lungs is unhealthy. The stomach also easily suffers from too much smoking, so measure and aim. The eyes are not attacked directly, but only by the smoke. "
There are also a few lines of “literary” on the feuilleton page. In the February 21 issue, this is a reference to the current issue of the political satirical magazine Simplicissimus , whereby the drawings and their artists are listed individually, for example "Germany and England by Th. Th. Heine". The Simplizissimus could also be bought at post offices and it cost 15 or 25 pfennigs, depending on the quality of the paper.
The last page consists of advertising for
- Ackermann's margarine and loosely distilled coffees
- Cheese from Holland by Ernst Schuster & Cie.
- the Hotel-Restaurant Zur Pfahlburg, Perlengraben
- Furniture, beds and upholstery by G. Guttmann at Schildergasse 70
- Knotweed tea & sweets, available in most pharmacies and drug stores
- Carnival music and Büttenmarsche 1903 for piano with the text "He ess jet loss!" (Something is going on here!) From the publisher of the Cologne court newspaper
- Brisk mustache
- Bagpipes for laughing
- Book about marriage with 39 illustrations
- Hat factory Franz Schäfer, Friesenstrasse 37, with special recommendation Prince of Wales silk and cylinder hats
and calling the newspaper to ...
"Photographers and amateur photographers, if you take pictures of major catastrophes and accidents [...], send them photographs as quickly as possible, even if not retouched, so that they can be reproduced in the judicial newspaper."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Example: Issue 1 of March 12, 1920. Bank robbers were removed from their shackles in the courtroom on the condition that they remained calm. After the verdicts were announced, the court newspaper commented that the defendants adhered to them, because "idlers fear being beaten".
- ↑ The text contains elements of fact and fiction and emphasizes rich descriptions of emotions - typical for the tabloid press. He uses the two-year-old spelling reform, albeit not always consistently, which points to several authors who have contributed for an article. The Orthographic Conference of 1901 had, among other things , abolished the accompanying h as in “Thüre” and “gethan”.