Otto Wigand

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Otto Wigand (wood engraving from 1867 after a lithograph by Gustav Schlick 1853)

Otto Friedrich Wigand (born August 10, 1795 in Göttingen , † September 1, 1870 in Leipzig ) was a German publisher and politician . His pseudonym was Otto Friedrich Rammler .

Life

Otto Wigand was born the seventh child of Friedrich and Johanna Wigand in Göttingen. There he attended what is now the Max Planck Gymnasium , but left it at the age of fourteen to begin an apprenticeship in the Deuerlich bookstore in Göttingen. During his apprenticeship he left his hometown to evade military service and went - after a wandering that took him to Leipzig, Dresden and Prague - to Pressburg , where his eldest brother Carl had been a partner in the local Lippert bookstore since 1811 was. Here he was trained as a publisher and bookseller.

In 1827 he founded a bookstore and publishing house in Pest , which also had its own branch in Leipzig. His main publishing work during this time was the Hungarian Conversation Lexicon , a large, comprehensive work, the publication of which Wigand had made a great contribution to Hungarian literature . Because of charges in support of the national opposition, Wigand printed their program brochures, he had to leave the Hungarian capital and settled in Leipzig in 1833 .

Wigand's printing house at Roßplatz 3b, Leipzig, photograph between 1884 and 1888

There he founded a publishing business again, which flourished and brought out important works. He continued to publish Hungarian books, but also published publications from the ranks of Junge Deutschland . After it was banned by the German Bundestag in 1835, he campaigned for the Young Hegelians . In his publishing house appeared literature by Arnold Ruge and Ludwig Feuerbach , whose complete works he published from 1846. He was on friendly terms with both of them. But he also included Max Stirner's book The Only One and His Property in his program, which strongly attacked the Young Hegelians, especially Feuerbach. Wigand was the publisher of the Hallische Jahrbucher and the German Yearbooks for Science and Art , the Yearbooks of Medicine and the Geographical-Statistical Lexicon of the World . In 1841 he enabled the publication of Johann Jacoby's Four Questions Answered by an East Prussian and published in 1845 Friedrich Engels The Situation of the Working Class in England . From 1846 to 1852 he published the 15-volume conversation lexicon for all classes . The first edition of the first volume of Karl Marx Das Kapital , published in 1867 by the Hamburg publisher Otto Meissner , was also produced in his Leipzig print shop on Roßplatz .

Commemorative plaque near the location of the former Wigand printing press on Leipzig's Roßplatz.

In 1846, the Viennese government issued a ban on the distribution of Otto Wigand and Anton Philipp Reclam's publications . After the March Revolution , Wigand became a city ​​councilor in Leipzig and a member of the second chamber of the state parliament . In 1864 he withdrew from his business and handed over management to his son Carl Hugo, born in 1822. Six years later he died at the age of 75 in Leipzig. The Otto Wigand publishing house existed until the first decade of the 20th century.

Otto Wigand's sons, Otto Alexander Wigand and Walter Wilhelm Wigand, ran a printing house built in 1857/1858 at Roßplatz 3b in Leipzig . Here in 1867 the first edition of the first volume of Das Kapital von Karl Marx was printed, which was published by Otto Carl Meißner in Hamburg . The first edition of 1000 copies followed in the same company in 1873 by the second with around 3000 copies.

In 1904, in honor of Otto Wigand and his brother Georg , a street in Leipzig was named Wigandstrasse.

Works

  • Arnold Ruge / Otto Wigand: To the Upper Second Chamber of the Saxon Estates Assembly: Complaint about the suppression of the journal: “German Yearbooks for Science and Art” ordered by a High Ministry of the Interior and carried out on January 3, 1843 . Otto, Braunschweig 1843 digitized
  • Letters from a German citizen . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1851
  • Letters from and to Stephan Szechényi . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1861

Magazines and encyclopedias

  • Wigand's quarterly . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1844–1845, a total of 8 volumes; Digital copy (year 1844, volumes 1–4)
  • The Epigones , 5 volumes 1846–1848 (follow-up from Wigand's quarterly publication)

Wigand's conversation lexicon for all stands. (1846-1852)

  • Second volume. 1846 digitized (Barbacena - Caldani)
  • Fourth volume. 1847 (Germany - Feodosia)
  • Fifth volume. 1847 digitized
  • Tenth volume. 1850 digitized
  • Fourteenth volume. 1852 (technology - truth)
  • Fifteenth volume. 1852 digitized version (fortune telling - Zwoll)

Weeklies

  • The field church. Illustrated weekly for all friends of nature. Leipzig. Otto Wigand. 1856.
  • The Sunday mail. Illustrated weekly for instruction and entertainment . (Nachf. Of Die Feldkirche) Leipzig. Otto Wigand. 1857.

literature

  • Publishing report by Otto Wigand in Leipzig . Otto Wigand, Leipzig 1844
  • Hugo Oelbermann : Speech on Otto Wigand . In: Leipziger Tageblatt of September 9, 1870
  • Karl Friedrich Pfau :  Wigand, Otto . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 457 f.
  • Rudolf Schmidt : German bookseller. German book printer . Volume 6. Berlin / Eberswalde 1908, pp. 1043-1047
  • W. Wolfgramm: Wigand, Otto . In: Karl Obermann , Heinrich Scheel , Helmut Stoecker u. a. (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon on German History. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1967, pp. 497–498.
  • Hans Dieter Mück / Ursula Rautenberg / Gotthard Oswald Marbach : People's books. Introduction and commentary on the faithful reproduction of the edition published by Otto Wigand in Leipzig from 1838 to 1848 . Stuttgart Facsimile Ed. published by Fackelverlag, Stuttgart 1985
  • Inge Kießhauer: Otto Friedrich Wigand. In: Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte , vol. 1, 1991, pp. 155–188
  • Kurt Schneider: Otto Wigand. 1795-1870 . In: Leipzig's New. Left newspaper for politics and culture . Leipzig Vol. 8 (2000), 18, p. 12

Web links

Commons : Otto Wigand  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jens Rometsch: "Das Kapital" - 150 years ago today a world bestseller appeared in Leipzig . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . September 11, 2017, p. 13 .
  2. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernoth Griebsch: Encyclopedia Leipziger street names . Ed .: City Archives Leipzig. 1st edition. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 221 .
personal data
SURNAME Wigand, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wigand, Otto Friedrich; Rammler, Otto Friedrich (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and bookseller
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1870
Place of death Leipzig