Maximilian Schreier

Maximilian Schreier (born May 23, 1877 in Brno , Austria-Hungary , † June 15, 1942 in Vienna ) was an Austrian journalist and member of the Vienna City Council .

Maximilian Schreier (1919)

Life

The grave of Maximilian Schreier after the restoration in December 2017

Election poster 1919

Schreier was born as the son of the commercial clerk Josef Schreier. He completed four years of high school, but was unable to study for financial reasons. As a teenager, he joined the Gumpendorf Workers' Education Association in Vienna and began to be interested in political events.

He began his journalistic career with occasional articles for the satirical weekly newspaper Kikeriki ! In 1897 he published the Freie Volksbühne and from 1898–1901 worked for the political and cultural magazine Die Waage . In 1901 he became a local editor and soon became a member of the parliamentary department of the Österreichische Volkszeitung . In the same year Schreier also began his work in the journalists and writers' association “Concordia” , in which he later became a member of the court of honor and secretary. Here he particularly campaigned for a better social position for journalists, a trade union organization for the profession and the opening of the “Concordia” to women, which was not implemented until 1919.

In December 1909, he and Carl Colbert founded the Wiener Zeitungsgesellschaft mbH, the main purpose of which was to publish the newspaper Der Morgen. Wiener Montagblatt was. From 1917 he was the sole managing director. In 1910 Schreier was appointed judicial expert in the newspaper business.

At the end of 1917 Schreier attempted to reorganize the renowned daily newspaper Die Zeit , which was for sale ; In 1919 its title was changed to "The Morning".

In 1918 he married the actress Ida von Belitzky (stage name Ida Norden).

From December 3, 1918 to May 22, 1919 he was a member of the Provisional Municipal Council of the City of Vienna and also ran for the Democratic Party in the election to the Constituent National Assembly in 1919.

In November 1922 he founded the newspaper Der Tag together with Siegmund Bosel , from July 1930 Der Wiener Tag , on which some of the best journalists such as B. Robert Musil , Walther Rode and Gustav Stolper collaborated. However, in 1925, due to the financial decline of Bosel, the paper got into trouble; However, the continuation could only be secured through the participation of the Prague Foreign Ministry related press group Orbis, which led to the fact that the newspaper subsequently supported the foreign policy of Edvard Beneš and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk .

The grave of Max Schreier at the Vienna Central Cemetery before the repair

After the " Anschluss of Austria ", Schreier was arrested in Vienna on March 13, 1938 because of his anti-Nazi attitude and his Jewish origins, and at the beginning of 1939 he was deported to the Weimar-Buchenwald concentration camp . He, his employees and others involved in the newspaper Der Morgen were mocked in the exhibition “ The Eternal Jew ” in Vienna's Nordwestbahnhalle and “described” in the diction of the time. In June 1939, however, he was brought back to Vienna, where he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the spring of 1940. Although he already had an entry permit to Sweden, he was refused entry. His hopes of still being able to emigrate to the USA were not fulfilled. He spent the last few months seriously ill in the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna . His first suicide attempt failed. There he committed suicide in June 1942 in order to avoid the imminent deportation to an extermination camp.

In his farewell letter to his wife Ida on June 12, 1942 at 9 p.m. he wrote, among other things:

Dear poor Ida!

Since a renewed check seems to see my state of health as favorable, I consider my fate sealed. I don't have much time to lose and I have to say goodbye to the world, to all who are dear to me - to you.

He was buried on June 23 at Vienna's Central Cemetery IV Gate (Group 9a, Row 2, No. 15).

Quote

" Let us build a dam
against the onslaught of violence by fulfilling our social responsibilities !"

- Maximilian Schreier

literature

• Th. Venus:  Screamers Maximilian. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 11, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2803-7 , p. 201 f. (Direct links on p. 201 , p. 202 ).
• Austrian National Library (Ed.): Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin, 18th to 20th centuries . 3 volumes. tape 3 . KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 1230 .
• Maximilian Schreier in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
• Maximilian Schreier in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
• Maximilian Schreier in the DÖW

Web links

Commons : Maximilian Schreier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The end of the newspaper on March 12, 1938
• Information about "The Day"
• Information about "The Vienna Day"
• Karl Bömer : Handbook of the world press. Armanen-Verlag, Leipzig 1937.
• Obituary by Heinrich Eduard Jacob
• “In spite of everything we are celebrating!” Article by Schreier
• Peter Sonnenberg: Media control during the Nazi era . Master's thesis at the University of Vienna 2009. (PDF file; 775 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ("Concordia."). In:  Wiener Zeitung , June 5, 1914, p. 11, middle column, middle (online at ANNO ).
2. ↑ ("Concordia."). In:  Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung , June 30, 1917, p. 3, left column, center (online at ANNO ).
3. ^ Company logging. Department C .. In:  Wiener Zeitung , December 29, 1909, p. 713 (online at ANNO ).
4. ^ Company logging. Department C .. In:  Wiener Zeitung , November 21, 1917, p. 313 (online at ANNO ).
5. ↑ (Appointment of an expert in the newspaper field). In:  Wiener Zeitung , June 12, 1910, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
6. ↑ City Council of the City of Vienna. Members of the parish council. In:  Wiener Kommunal-Kalender and municipal yearbook for 1919 , year 1919, p. 36 (online at ANNO ).
7. ↑ To the exhibition "The Eternal Jew" in the Vienna Nordwestbahnhalle: The writing line of the former Monday newspaper Der Morgen. In:  Die Wiener Bühne , year 1938, p. 32, issue 478, second August issue (online at ANNO ). and following page 33
   Maximilian Schreier, Jew, owner, publisher and editor, most notorious atrocity journalist in Europe, high-level freemason of the lodge “Die Zukunft”, organizer of anti-Nazi propaganda, highest paid journalist in Austria. The specialty of his newspaper "Der Morgen" was atrocity articles such as: "Every day corpses in the Landwehr Canal", "From the brown hell", "Murder and incendiary beasts".
8. ↑ A single letter reports all of this suffering. In:  London Information of the Austrian Socialists in Great Britain , year 1942, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).
9. ^ The Ordeal of the Jews in Austria. Only 25,000 Left in Vienna. In:  London Information of the Austrian Socialists in Great Britain , year 1942, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
10. ↑ Before the voters. In:  The morning. Wiener Montagblatt , January 3, 1919, p. 10 (online at ANNO ).