Karl Vetter (politician, 1897)

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Karl Otto Paul Vetter , also Carl Otto Paul Vetter (born March 18, 1897 in Berlin ; † September 15, 1957 ) was a German politician, publisher and journalist.

Family, education and first jobs

As the son of a master mason from Berlin-Neukölln , where the family lived in a house on Hobrechtstrasse , he attended a community school and took private lessons. After completing his commercial training as a publishing company, he attended a commercial college. From 1913 to 1915 he published the monthly Hermes and from 1916 to 1917 writings on the youth movement. At the same time, from 1916 on, he began working as an editor for the Berliner Volks-Zeitung published by Mosse-Verlag .

Political activities

From December 1917 to November 1918 he served as a soldier in the First World War . In November and December 1918 Vetter was a member of the soldiers' council of the 17th and 18th Army. Afterwards he worked again for the Berliner Volks-Zeitung . On October 2, 1919 he founded the Peace Association of War Participants (FdK) with Kurt Tucholsky , Carl von Ossietzky , Emil Julius Gumbel , Georg Friedrich Nicolai and others in the editorial office of the Berliner Volks-Zeitung . With Vetter's significant involvement, the "Never Again War Movement" developed on July 1, 1920 . In March 1921, the Republican Reich Federation (RRB) was founded, with Vetter on the steering committee.

On August 1, 1920, Vetter and Tucholsky organized a Never Again War rally as the main speaker in Berlin's Lustgarten . The event was repeated a year later on July 31, 1921 with the participation of 27 organizations with around 100,000 visitors and was accompanied by demonstrations in more than 200 German cities. By November 1921, Vetter published the pamphlet Never Again War .

Vetter and Kurt Tucholsky wrote a 99-point program under the title Bringing the hitherto dry republic of Weimar to life , with which the conditions in the Weimar Republic should be improved. Both presented the program to the Reich Minister of the Interior, Adolf Köster . Essentially, the conversation should have been about the preparations for the Weimar Constitution celebrations on August 11, 1922. Later self-reported cousin, according to he wants while the proposal have submitted, during the celebration of the Song of Germany by Hoffmann von Fallersleben to play. At the birthday of the Imperial Constitution in Berlin's Lustgarten with more than 500,000 participants, many visitors are said to have actually sung the third stanza of the Deutschlandlied, which would have laid the foundation for the German national anthem. According to Kurt Tucholsky, a few days later the editorial offices of the Berliner Volks-Zeitung received a telex from the Minister of the Interior, which stated that Reich President Friedrich Ebert had chosen the Deutschlandlied as the German anthem because of the great approval at the event.

The Republican Party of Germany (RPD) was founded on January 6, 1924 on the initiative of employees of the Berliner Volks-Zeitung and members of the FdK . Vetter was first deputy chairman and elected 1st chairman on April 6, 1924, as well as being the party's top candidate for the Reichstag election on May 4, 1924 . The RPD received almost no votes and dissolved again in June 1924. Later, voices were raised that the RPD was founded with outside support only to divide democratic parties in many individual directions.

In March 1924, Vetter and von Ossietzky had to leave the editorial office of the Berliner Volks-Zeitung because of their political activities. Theodor Wolff announced his resignation, and the establishment of the RPD in particular met with strong resistance from the most powerful editor-in-chief of Mosse-Verlag. After leaving the Mosse Group, Vetter became the publisher and editor-in-chief of the RDP party newspaper Die Republik - Die Neue Tageszeitung , which only appeared from October 30, 1924 to November 30, 1924 despite the party being dissolved.

Work at the Berlin trade fair office

In 1925 Vetter became head and press chief of the advertising department in the exhibition, trade fair and tourism office of the city of Berlin . There he also worked as editor-in-chief of the magazine Wochenspiegel for life, economy and traffic of the Reich capital , which appeared from 1925. He organized exhibitions and put out brochures like Everyone once in Berlin! or the official guide for Berlin and the surrounding area .

Analogous to the Week-End Initiative that originated in the USA in 1910 , Vetter initiated a German weekend movement . To this end, he founded and chaired the Berlin weekend committee. The highlight of the campaign was the exhibition The Weekend on Berlin's Kaiserdamm from April 16 to June 12, 1927 . From 1928 to 1929 Vetter and Karl August Tramm published the magazine Das Wochen (Weekend). Suggestions for practical implementation . In it he emphasized that the idea of ​​the weekend had become one of the strongest cultural factors of our time and pointed out the economic advantages of the weekend movement . In doing so, he did not forget to point out the special role of the Berlin weekend committee, which had become a work center. The weekend movement would also be advantageous for entrepreneurs because it promotes the mental and physical relaxation of the weekend worker and thus the economic efficiency of the whole .

At the end of the 1920s, he organized an action to save the Berlin radio tower , which the architect Heinrich Straumer wanted to demolish because the technical development of such radio masts was already out of date shortly after completion.

Return to the Mosse publishing house

In 1930 Vetter returned to the Mosse publishing house. In the 8 o'clock evening paper he started the campaign Knight from the wheel and called on Berlin drivers for a picnic . All traffic to the east is said to have collapsed and one of the largest traffic jams in Berlin. Through his work at the trade fair office, he had numerous contacts with the Berlin catering industry. He used this for advertising by influencing the editorial team to write cheap reports about restaurants and their parties. He published the article in the Berliner Tageblatt and in the Berliner Volks-Zeitung under the motto The Blue Ribbon of Hospitality . Such coupling deals were customary in the industry.

In 1930 he organized with Oskar von Miller and Hans Lachmann-Mosse the international world energy conference (World Power Conference) in the Mosse-Palais . The great success of the campaign is said to have induced Lachmann-Mosse to entrust Vetter with more management tasks in the publishing house. When Martin Carbe , the chief authorized signatory of the Mosse Group, left the company in December 1930, Vetter took over the official representation of the publisher at certain institutions and associations. At the same time, he was commissioned to radically redesign the Berliner Tageblatt against the intentions of Theodor Wolff. In fact, Vetter could not stop the opinion journalism practiced by Wolff . He developed into a handyman of Lachmann-Mosse and supported him in the implementation of austerity programs and layoffs. However, all efforts came too late; In autumn 1932 the Mosse group collapsed .

When the Berliner Tageblatt was banned for two days on March 10, 1933 , according to Wolfgang Bretholz Vetter, negotiations with Joseph Goebbels are said to have led to the lifting of the ban. In the German history of journalism the article by Vetter, referred to as the Frontschwein article , with the title Klarheit! one that appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt on April 4, 1933 . This editorial was an open break from the newspaper's republican past and was often viewed as submission, and not just by journalists. With this article, the Berliner Tageblatt not only publicly acknowledged the new system, but was also the first newspaper to "align itself " with the new power .

According to Vetter's own statements, he was dismissed in August 1933 because he had refused to consent to publication. Only opaque information is available about his activities up to 1940. Allegedly, he is said to have been active in the resistance , according to other sources, as a secret service for the National Socialists. In 1940 he appeared in Heidelberg , where he was managing director of the Melliand publishing house until 1945. At least this activity could only have been carried out in coordination with the Reich Press Chamber, since a permit was always required for this.

post war period

From December 5, 1946, Vetter appeared as co-editor of Mannheimer Morgen . In it he wrote an article on April 9, 1947, in which he objected to the admission of party newspapers . He pointed to the role of party newspapers in the German past and spoke of a blow against the free licensed press .

Editors of the SPD-affiliated licensed newspaper Telegraf then researched Vetter's past and publicly accused him of being an editor of National Socialist publications, for example the brochure by Henning Duderstadt Vom Reichsbanner zum Hakenkreuz . Vetter responded with a criminal complaint for defamation against the editor of the telegraph Arno Scholz . This continued his attacks on cousin. In August 1947, the Telegraf published that Vetter, as a co-founder of the RPD, had received illegal election donations directly from the Soviet Union through Willi Munzenberg , which should lead to the split in democratic parties. The US licensor responsible for Mannheimer Morgen took note of this accusation . Vetter could not exonerate himself. As a result, he had to leave Mannheim morning on December 9, 1947 . Probably out of self-protection, the Mannheimer Morgen reported a year later that the Central Arbitration Chamber could not prove anything for Nordbaden Vetter and that the SPD had only attempted to deal with old journalist trades and old party quarrels via Allied laws .

In May 1949 Vetter joined the publishing office of the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung in Heidelberg, which he headed until 1950. He then went into retirement.

Fonts

  • The collapse of the western front - Ludendorff is to blame !. The indictment of the field gray . Koch & Jürgens, Berlin 1919. (16-page brochure)
  • Writings on the German collapse in 1918. Leipzig 1924.
  • The Berlin radio tower. Words and pictures to become and work. On the occasion of his consecration on September 3, 1926. Compiled by Karl Vetter, Ed. Berliner Messeamt, Berlin 1926.
  • A thousand pictures: Great Police Exhibition Berlin 1926. with Hans Hirschfeld. Edited by Albert Grzesinski , Gersbach and Son, Berlin 1927.
  • Almanac for the exhibition German Rhine German Wine: February 12 to March 13, 1927 , Berlin 1927
  • The weekend - suggestions for practical implementation with Karl August Tramm, Berlin 1928
  • Official guide for Berlin and the surrounding area and Potsdam and its castles , Berlin 1928
  • 100 x Berlin with Laszlo Willinger, Berlin 1929
  • Youth do you know the way : We call for action! with Karl Ackermann and E. Fritz von Schilling, Heidelberg 1947

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herrmann AL Degener : Who is it? Berlin 1928.
  2. ↑ Margret Boveri : We all lie. Freiburg 1965, p. 37.
  3. ↑ Bruno Jahn: Die deutschsprachige Presse - A biographical-bibliographical manual, Volume 2. Munich 2005, p. 1092.
  4. ^ Antje Di Bella: Tucholsky and the Weimar Republic . Munich 1993, p. 12.
  5. ↑ Richard von Soldenhoff: Carl von Ossietzky. Berlin 1988, p. 79.
  6. ^ Werner Fritsch: Republikanischer Reichsbund (RRB) 1921–1933 (from 1922 German Republikanischer Reichsbund). in: Dieter Fricke (Ed.): Lexicon for the history of parties, Volume 4. Leipzig 1986, pp. 97-101.
  7. ↑ Richard von Soldenhoff, ibid, p. 85
  8. ↑ Kurt Koszyk : German Press 1914 - 19245, Part III. Berlin 1972, p. 287.
  9. ^ Michael Hepp: Kurt Tucholsky, Biographical Approaches. Hamburg 1993, p. 234.
  10. ^ Antje Kopp, Kurt Tucholsky - The warnings of Ignaz Wrobel in the world stage
  11. ^ Karl Vetter: Birth of a Hymn . in: Frankenpost, Hof, May 24, 1952, in: Michael Hepp, ibid, p. 460.
  12. ↑ Antje Bonitz (Ed.): Kurt Tucholsky, Complete Edition, Volume 12, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Reinbek 2004, p. 265.
  13. ↑ Margret Boveri: We all lie. Olten 1965, p. 38.
  14. ↑ Richard von Soldenhoff, ibid 278th
  15. ↑ Antje Bonitz, ibid, p. 421.
  16. ^ Walther Kiaulehn : Berlin. Fate of a cosmopolitan city . Munich 1997, p. 30.
  17. ↑ Margret Boveri, ibid, p. 39.
  18. ↑ Margret Boveri, ibid, p. 39.
  19. ↑ Margret Boveri, ibid, p. 77.
  20. ↑ Margret Boveri, ibid, pp. 95-97.
  21. ^ Karl Vetter: On our own behalf . in: Mannheimer Morgen from April 26, 1947, quoted in: Udo Leuschner: Zeitungs-Geschichte . Berlin 1981, p. 219.
  22. ↑ Bruno Jahn, ibid, p. 1093.
  23. ^ Affaire Vetters at "Mannheimer Morgen" 1947
personal data
SURNAME Cousin, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vetter, Karl Otto Paul (full name); Cousin, Carl Otto Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist, politician, publisher and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1957