Melzer Verlag

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Melzer Verlag was a German publisher. The company founded in 1958 by Joseph Melzer initially specialized in Judaica , then turned to erotic and pornographic literature in particular . Abraham Melzer continued the family business after a number of start-ups with a focus on political non-fiction books until 2012.

history

Joseph Melzer after returning from Israel

In 1958, after returning from Israel, Joseph Melzer founded the Joseph Melzer Verlag in Cologne with the aim of making the books banned by the National Socialists accessible again to German readers . In the 1960s the publishing house moved to Darmstadt . Jörg Schröder published Victor Klemperer's LTI (1966) with Melzer , the beat and black power activist LeRoi Jones and, with great success, the first German edition in the history of O (1967). The publisher consciously took the risk of publishing the pornographic novel in order to avoid the impending bankruptcy.

Son Abraham takes over

Melzer's son Abraham joined the family business in 1970 and was jointly responsible for the program design after Melzer parted ways with Schröder in disagreement. At first one was able to profit from the pornography wave on the book market at the time, after which the company , which was run under the sole proprietorship "Joseph Melzer Verlag", went bankrupt in 1971 . From 1972 Joseph Melzer ran the business as "Melzer Verlag limited liability company", but left there in 1974 as managing director. In 1979 the company was deleted due to lack of assets. In the same year Abraham Melzer founded "Abi Melzer Verlag limited liability company". With the change of name to "Weiss Verlag Gesellschaft mit LIMITED LIABILITY" in 1982, he resigned as managing director, but was again managing director from 1986 to 1987 and from 1988 to 1991 due to lack of assets. In 1976 Abraham Melzer founded the "Abi" Melzer Productions Verlag limited liability company, which was deleted in 1990 due to lack of assets. Abraham Melzer subsequently worked as a book producer for publishers such as Fourier , Parkland and Weltbild .

SEMIT magazine

In 1988, Abraham Melzer founded the political magazine SEMIT , which appeared irregularly until 1992 and was discontinued in 2012. Oswald LeWinter was co-editor .

Founding of the publishing house in 2001

The main focus of the magazine was on Jewish and Israeli topics. Their political profile was marked by a decided opposition to Israeli government policy. The program of SEMIT also determined the direction of the Melzer Verlag, newly founded in 2001, whose program primarily consisted of Jewish topics with a focus on the Middle East conflict , Israeli literature , Jewish art , political non-fiction and Judaica . The subtitle The Other Jewish Program was to be understood as an indication of the publisher's critical claim. This was not met with undivided approval, especially in German Jewry - even his mother Miriam wrote: "Abi, these are bad lies, why are you doing that?"

The program was supplemented by a popular range of novels, non-fiction books and, most recently, photo books such as the illustrated book on Romy Schneider's life, published in July 2006 . Productions for other publishers were the second mainstay of the Melzer Verlag, in addition to the already mentioned customers there were Parragon and Zweiausendeins .

Abraham Melzer also works as a translator and most recently translated and published a Heinrich Heine biography by the Israeli publicist Yigal Lossin from Hebrew into German. The publisher's authors included the Cap Anamur founder Rupert Neudeck (“I don't want to be silent” over the wall to the West Bank) and the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy ( Ha'aretz ). With translations by Israeli authors such as Ehud Ben-Ezer , who are less well-known in Germany, but important , the publisher wanted to sharpen readers' perception of differences and nuances. In 2003 the publisher took over the controversial book After Terror. A treatise by the Canadian philosopher Ted Honderich that was re-translated after Suhrkamp discontinued its publication because of allegations of anti-Semitism against the author.

In 2005 the publishing house published Das Ende des Judentums: Personal reflections on Judaism, the Holocaust and Israel by Hajo G. Meyer , a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. About this book, which in an essayistic manner and with autobiographical echoes deals with the “moral decline of today's Israeli society” and also describes the Holocaust as a “whim of history”, speculates about a future intention of the Jews for world domination and Israeli politics When compared several times with that of the National Socialists, a media-effective legal dispute arose with the publicist Henryk M. Broder , in which he asserted against Abraham Melzer and Hajo Meyer that he could accuse them of anti-Semitism:

“He is allowed to name both of them 'capacities for applied judaophobia' and declare that they 'made Adolf'. Only the statement Melzer fills a gap with 'brown dirt' was forbidden. "

In March 2010, the Goldstone report on the Gaza War was published by Melzer Verlag .

In 2012 the publisher finally ceased operations. Melzer has been running a blog (der-semit.de) under the old domain of the also discontinued SEMIT magazine since 2014 and published the book Merkel awake! ISRAEL BEFORE COURT by Zambon-Verlag .

In 2016, Melzer founded Cosmics Verlag, because “the name Melzer Verlag is too heavily burdened with the sole issue of the Palestine conflict” and he also wants to publish other books that are worth reading.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trade tab HRA 20896 of the District Court Frankfurt, decision of the bankruptcy court of Frankfurt am Main on 16 September 1971 81 N 248/71
  2. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 1684 of the Darmstadt local court
  3. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 982 and 1791 of the district court of Langen
  4. ^ Commercial register sheet HRB 624 of the Langen Local Court
  5. ↑ Magazines - Abi, why are you doing this? , Der Spiegel 39/1989, page 265f
  6. ^ Postscript without remorse. In: The Standard . December 30, 2003.
  7. ↑ I don't think the book is anti-Semitic. In: The Standard . November 7, 2003.
  8. ↑ Ted, do you really believe ... on: Telepolis . October 21, 2003.
  9. ↑ a b Alex Feuerherdt : Henryk M. Broder: "Made Adolf". In: Tagesspiegel. November 9, 2007. The book was translated from Dutch by Christiane Kuby and Herbert Post. Table of contents  ( 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. , ( PDF , 43 kB).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.gbv.de  
  10. ↑ publisher's information.
  11. ↑ Igniter: Melzer brings Goldstone report as a book. on: buchmarkt.de , March 5, 2010.
  12. ↑ Abraham Melzer turns 70 today , Book Market on February 5, 2015
  13. ↑ Welcome to Cosmics Verlag , accessed on June 11, 2017