pardon (magazine)

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pardon

description German satirical magazine
publishing company Bärmeier & Nikel
Headquarters Frankfurt am Main
First edition August 27, 1962
attitude 1982
Frequency of publication biweekly
Sold edition 320,000 copies
ISSN (print)

pardon was a German-language literary-satirical magazine that appeared from 1962 to 1982. Trademarks of pardon was F. K. Waechter devil that his melon lupft. Their aim was to bring a critical climate and some color into what, from the point of view of the pardon, "encrusted conditions" of the Adenauer era .

Employees and departments

Pardon combined politics with humor, information with satire and philosophy with graphics . The authors included the then unknown and first time publishing students Robert Gernhardt and FW Bernstein as well as the draftsmen Kurt Halbritter , Hans Traxler , FK Waechter , Volker Ernsting , Arno Ploog , Stano Kochan and Chlodwig Poth . There was the constant nonsense double page WimS - Welt im Spiegel , for many years mainly denied by Bernstein, Gernhardt and Waechter. In pardon , Alice Schwarzer , Günter Wallraff and Gerhard Kromschröder published their first big role reports, Freimut Duve , Robert Jungk , Hagen Rudolph and others published their highly regarded opinion columns. Even Wilhelm Genazino was for a time the editorial board. In February 1979, Paul Badde and Albert Christian Sellner were responsible for the general section of the magazine, which Badde ironically called the “Theology and Pornography Department” in a book, as well as for the magazine's music and literary criticism.

As a further international specialty of the journal, Pardon also developed other, not only satirical focuses, including a. through Gerd Winkler's picture and information-rich art weather situation (model for the later magazine art ), through critically witty literary reviews ( e.g. Otto Köhler's literary killer ) and through a film magazine, but above all through the special section ANDERS LEBEN with reports on future workshops . "At a time when the green party was not even thought up, the pardon boss had already occupied the topic of ecology, which he had the futurologist Robert Jungk write about".

The original pardon (1961–1982)

Start and successes: 1961–1971

With a circulation of 320,000 (at its peak) and more than 1.5 million regular readers, Pardon temporarily became the largest satirical magazine in Europe. After a zero number in 1961 and an internal booklet, the first edition of Pardon appeared on August 27, 1962 , founded by publishers Hans A. Nikel and Erich Bärmeier . Nikel won Erich Kästner as sponsor, Loriot , who designed the first title page, and Werner Finck , as well as writers like Wolfgang Bauer , Hans Magnus Enzensberger , Martin Walser and Günter Grass were active as authors. Erich Bärmeier was responsible for the publishing and distribution business, the editor-in-chief was Hans A. Nikel, he developed the concept and topics.

Despite their high standards, Pardon was successful from the start. The institution of the pardon action reinvented by Pardon regularly caused a stir in the Federal Republic. Changes were initiated right into the Bundestag. For the most part, it was activities on the political right that Pardon attacked. There were also satirical analyzes, actions and attacks on the Spiegel , the Stern and the Frankfurter Rundschau . With regard to the picture of the Axel Springer, a special edition was published under the headline Pardons the big leisure hit: Find a true story in the picture! published in which the messages in the picture were checked and forgeries discovered were documented. The FAZ had a quarter of a century later be stated: "Pardon has taken under Nikels line with its literary and satirical flair for 18 years influence on the zeitgeist of the Republic - a striking phase of post-war history."

In the autumn of 1963, for example, a Günter Grass bust was erected in the Walhalla near Regensburg. After the Frankfurter Rundschau published a report on a supposedly “scandalous LSD party” that was actually financed by the FR editor-in-chief itself, Pardon employees staged such an alleged “LSD party”. The Frankfurter Rundschau also reported on this party. The real background of pardon was then revealed. The action was intended to provide evidence that the media could be manipulated. Another time, the editors sent eight machine pages from Robert Musil's famous work The Man without Qualities under the fictional name of an amateur writer as a “sample of my own work with a request for publication” to more than 30 publishers, all of whom rejected the manuscript.

Because of his actions, Pardon was also frequently sued. There were lasting disputes in particular with the politician Franz Josef Strauss , who sued pardon a total of 18 times - and lost each time in court.

Division, reorganization and demise

In 1971 the partners split up. Erich Bärmeier left, Hans A. Nikel continued to manage Pardon alone. The editorial team finally came to differing opinions. A stumbling block was the increasing reorientation of the magazine to New Age topics by the then Maharishi Mahesh Yogi follower Nikel (an example of this is the cover story “No joke: I can fly!” About “ yogic flying ”, issue 11/1977) like the general change from a satirical magazine to a general store consisting of a film, music and travel magazine.

Some employees separated, came together to form the New Frankfurt School and founded Titanic in 1979 as a rival magazine.

Editor Nikel won Elke Heidenreich , Peter Härtling and other authors. He discovered new editors who later became famous as authors, such as Paul Badde , Matthias Horx , Albert Christian Sellner (author for Enzensberger's Die Andere Bibliothek ). He published caricatures by Freimut Wössner , Manfred Limmroth , Gerhard Seyfried and Bernd Pfarr . Erich Rauschenbach , Klaus Puth , Norbert Golluch (all three later Eichborn / Diogenes authors), Volker Reiche (later FAZ series cartoonist ). Crumbs , the "drawing Anarchist", taught Pardon his Werner to the world and honored him as a monthly column. Also Karsten box was in the Pardon first published. His draftsman Tomas Bunk later went to New York, where he worked with Art Spiegelman on the Garbage Pail Kids and has been drawing for MAD magazine ever since .

The double-page Welt im Spiegel was continued by other Pardon employees after Gernhardt, Bernstein and Waechter left the company (including Manfred Hofmann, Michael Schiff, Thomas Wenner). A comic supplement in the middle of the magazine called Slapstick became an independent but short-lived humor magazine in 1978. At the same time, Pardon took over a lot of material from the French Hara-Kiri .

Nikel finished his editor-in-chief in October 1980 and granted pardon under license to the Konkret publisher Hermann L. Gremliza . Henning Venske became editor-in-chief with a new editorial team in Hamburg . From May 1982 pardon appeared biweekly in newspaper format, but was discontinued in July of the same year.

Journal of the same name (2004–07, 2013) under Bernd Zeller

In April 2004, the Jena satirist Bernd Zeller began publishing a magazine of the same name after he had acquired the naming rights from Nikel. The first publication attracted a lot of attention due to its important role model, and texts by Götz Alsmann , Roger Willemsen , Doris Dörrie and Wiglaf Droste also appeared in the first edition . Harald Schmidt wrote the preface: a letter of rejection. According to the editor-in-chief, the new pardon should offer satire mixed with essays and columns. After the success of the first edition (47,000 copies sold with a print run of 97,000 copies), the number of copies sold dropped significantly from the third edition to 12,000. Zeller's central position as publisher, editor-in-chief, editor and author with most of the articles also caused problems from the start. In spring 2005 a new publisher was found, until August 2006 Pardon was published by Rübe Verlag , and since September of the same year by Macchiato Verlag under editor Antje Hellmann. In addition, the magazine relied on the cooperation of the Islamophobic website Politically Incorrect . In September 2007 the magazine was discontinued with only 1,000 subscribers, the online presence will be continued under the name Darvins Illustrierte .

In September 2013, the Pardon magazine appeared again under the responsibility of the satirist Bernd Zeller. For the first time it was only published on the Internet. The publication was stopped after just 10 days. Zeller currently lets you know on the site: "I have to inform you that I am ending my professional work and withdrawing from the industry."

One-time reprint (2012) under Wolfram Weimer

On December 6, 2012, a one-time reprint of the magazine appeared in the Weimer Media Group, edited by the former Focus editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer . Peter Böhling and Daniel Häuser were named as editors-in-chief ; the print run of the magazine was 70,000 copies. Authors such as Hellmuth Karasek , Dieter Nuhr and Eckart von Hirschhausen wrote the first edition , and works by deceased authors such as Loriot and Heinrich Böll were also reprinted. The media response to the re-edition was muted. “Editor Wolfram Weimer avoids brute humor. The motto: We! Are! Intellectually! Often the intellectual highs end in a crash landing, ”wrote Martin U. Müller on Spiegel online . "The text quality in the new pardon varies from surprisingly original to stale and musty," said the Süddeutsche Zeitung . Another issue, said Weimer, is not excluded.

The satirical portal "Pardon" is planning a digital relaunch from July 1, 2020. The former "Pardon" magazine was founded in 1962 in Frankfurt. With a circulation of up to 320,000 copies and more than 1.5 million regular readers, the title temporarily became the largest satirical magazine in Europe.

At the beginning of 2020, Weimers Verlag confirmed the revival of Pardon as an online satirical magazine. The editor will be Ansgar Graw , who has been working in the same position for the debate magazine The European since March 1, 2020 .

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Pardon  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Paul Badde : Holy Land: on the royal road of all pilgrimages. 1st edition. Gütersloher Verl.-Haus, Gütersloh 2008, p. 16. In addition, explanatory oral information from Paul Badde on October 20, 2011
  2. ^ FAZ , August 9, 2001
  3. a b Michael Marek: The devil no longer greets . ( Memento of July 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Parliament , issue 43/2007
  4. Bloody route . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1970 ( online ). The articles are documented in bildblog.de
  5. Flug zum Ich , title and article from November 1977
  6. [1] Der Spiegel, May 8, 1978.
  7. Christian Fuchs: for the restart of pardon. sueddeutsche.de, March 29, 2004
  8. "Pardon". Satirical magazine discontinued . Focus, September 2, 2007.
  9. New online presence from September 2013
  10. Petra Schwegler: Sorry to take on types you don't expect. In: Advertise & Sell . December 3, 2012, accessed December 12, 2013 .
  11. Martin U. Müller: Revived "Pardon": Barbie in the toaster. In: Spiegel online . December 3, 2012, accessed December 12, 2013 .
  12. Rupert Sommer: Ridden by the devil. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . December 6, 2012, accessed December 12, 2013 .
  13. Weimer revived pardon . In: clap , accessed June 5, 2020.
  14. Ansgar Graw is the new editor of “The European” and “Pardon” . In: Meedia, March 5, 2020, accessed June 5, 2020.