Marta Baedeker

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Marta Baedeker , née Preuschel (born October 15, 1889 in Darkehmen , East Prussia , † July 20, 1973 in Essen ) was a German publisher and bookseller and manager of GD Baedeker Verlag in Essen. She founded the GD Baedeker Foundation.

Live and act

Marta Preuschel came to Essen at the age of 17. There she finished her apprenticeship as a bookseller at Baedeker-Verlag and stayed with the company. Here she met Alfred Baedeker , who had been the sole owner of the company since 1922, and married him in 1925. Marta Baedeker joined the management.

After her husband Alfred invested heavily in the company, it came on the verge of bankruptcy. After 1933 he retired from the management for health reasons, whereupon Marta Baedeker took over the sole management. Her husband died in 1937 as a result of a fall.

During the time of National Socialism , Marta Baedeker had tried to come to an agreement with the new rulers, but without sharing their ideas in order to secure the business, which she finally managed. After the end of the Second World War , with the help of managers Anton Kirschner and Thea Dieckhans, who had already been recruited in the 1930s, she succeeded in making a fresh start with a correspondingly new, contemporary range.

In 1959 Marta Baedeker retired from active business life. Concerned about the future of the bookstore, she founded the G. D. Baedeker Foundation in 1963 , a non-profit foundation for art and science in the city of Essen, based in Essen. In their statutes, the restriction to food was stipulated as a requirement that the Baedeker company had its business premises in the Baedekerhaus on Kettwiger Strasse in Essen. After Marta Baedeker died in 1973, her share of the business was transferred to the foundation's assets. Since 2000, the award of the Gottschalk-Diederich-Baedeker Prize has been included in the statutes as a foundation purpose.

literature

  • Manuel Hessling: GD Baedeker after the war; Interior views of a bookstore . Essen 2000, p. 185-210 .
  • Klaus Wisotzki: Book culture in the middle of industry. 225 years GD Baedeker in Essen . Ed .: Dorothea Bessen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 978-3-88474-786-5 , p. 167-184 .
  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads . Ed .: City of Essen - Historical Association for City and Monastery of Essen. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1231-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 25, 1973: On the death of Marta Baedeker
  2. ↑ Deed of GD Baedeker Foundation, in the house of the Essen History / City Archives : 303-1448
personal data
SURNAME Baedeker, Marta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Preuschel, Marta (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and bookseller, founder
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Darkehmen
DATE OF DEATH 20th July 1973
Place of death eat