Prager Tagblatt
The Prager Tagblatt was a German-language daily newspaper that appeared continuously from 1876 to 1939 in Prague , the capital of the Austrian crown land of Bohemia , and from 1918 on Czechoslovakia . Egon Erwin Kisch and Friedrich Torberg were editors of the newspaper for a while, Torberg also dedicates a chapter of his book Die Tante Jolesch to the paper . Other famous collaborators were Alfred Polgar , Roda Roda , Johannes Urzidil and Max Brod , who later wrote the novel Rebellische Herzen about his time at the daily newspaper. Joseph Roth and Sandor Marai established themselves as young, talented journalists here.
history
The Prager Tagblatt was the largest liberal-democratic German-language daily newspaper in Bohemia (until 1918) and Czechoslovakia (from 1918 to 1939) and was considered one of the best German-language daily newspapers of its time. It appeared several times a day (on Mondays to a limited extent), from the end of the First World War in 1918 it appeared only once a day except on Mondays. The successor is the Prager Zeitung , which was founded in 1991 and now appears online .
founding
After initial delays in 1876, the regular delivery of the daily newspaper founded by Heinrich Mercy (publisher) and Julius Gundling (editor in charge) began in December . In the 1870s it appeared on just eight to ten small pages once a day, the Sunday supplement did not yet exist, and only a few employees provided reports and feature sections. But the humorous tone of the political part and the good reporting made the paper a surprise success in the first few months. Amazed and proud, Mercy wrote as early as April 1, 1877: "The Tagblatt succeeded in securing a reading group of many thousands, gaining a distribution that no other journal has achieved in such a short time."
The attitude of the paper was initially "free-spirited", i. H. liberal and downright anti-bismarck , but it also strongly rejected social democracy and Catholicism. It tried to avoid national aggression and worked for an understanding with the Czechs.
During the First World War, the paper agreed with the general tenor of war propaganda, but often fell victim to the censorship with critical remarks and tried to draw attention to the suffering of the civilian population. The columnist share decreased, but remained high quality (article e.g. by Anton Kuh and Berthold Viertel ). This became known after the war
The literary work of the Prager Tagblatt
From today's point of view, the newspaper still impresses with its sure instinct when it comes to feuilleton talent. Under the Jewish theater critic Heinrich Teweles as editor-in-chief, the Tageblatt has developed into a mixture of a well-arranged European feuilleton digest (star translator Hermynia zur Mühlen here translated English-language texts) and an independent top essay newspaper since the turn of the century .
With its liberal-democratic orientation, the Prager Tagblatt was loyal to the new Czechoslovak Republic and its President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk . Under the favorable political and economic conditions of the interwar period , the quality of the newspaper reached an absolute peak. Hardly a number of the 1920s and 1930s appeared without at least one brilliant feature section. Anyone who could not be won over directly to the paper was reprinted, especially well-known authors such as Kurt Tucholsky or Robert Walser .
The Sunday edition, reserved for the best and most talented columnists, was legendary and also included a two- to three-page "entertainment supplement" in which fictional prose, fashion and book reviews had their place. From the mid-1920s, women increasingly set the tone in the supplement, including the young Dinah Nelken .
While the process of literarisation was also noticeable in other newspapers of the twenties, the gradual shift from factual reports to literary processing of what was observed is particularly noticeable here. It is no coincidence that Egon Erwin Kisch , the inventor of literary reportage, strongly influenced the newspaper in the early twenties. The climate of the literary city of Prague certainly contributed to the strange novelistic-ironic tone of the newspaper, which from 1925 at the latest also spread to the prosaic rubrics. The mixed part is often supplemented by anonymous glosses or drawn with abbreviations, local news was interspersed with strange aphorisms or transformed into small prose sketches. In addition, foreign reports on dangerous expeditions or entertaining trips are included in the political section as a continuation. The satirist and essayist Robert Scheu , from whom many of the anonymous articles probably originate, may have had a major influence on this development . After all, he draws some particularly successful ones with his last name.
Contemporaries also praised the music criticism in the Prager Tagblatt, and renowned literary experts compared it with the theater reviews of the world stage .
Refuge for writers in exile and end
From 1933 onwards, the paper became an asylum for emigrated or persecuted German writers (as one of the few world-class German-language newspapers not directly threatened by National Socialism). Famous authors such as Gabriele Tergit and Ossip Kalenter now increasingly wrote for this newspaper.
Immediately after the invasion and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by Nazi Germany , the publication of the Prager Tagblatt was discontinued. The last issue appeared on April 4, 1938, and on the following day, Der Neue Tag began operating in the premises of the Prager Tagblatt as a Nazi-oriented newspaper.
Columns columns
weekday
- Left column of page one: Commentary on current political events
- The bottom line on page two or three: The main feature section, mostly written by a high-ranking author or a regular author of the paper; Daily reference was not the rule here. Often one also summarized several feature sections here; The bottom line was that the text continued on page 4. The line was abandoned in 1933.
- Vom Tag: At first in times of the monarchy it was a rather factual reply, then more and more of a columnist character. There was space here for the glossary or a funny replica of a similarly minded magazine, such as the Berliner Tageblatt, the Weltbühne or the Tages-Buch.
- Court newspaper : Here the paper reported, as was usual at the time, on the Prague scandals in the courtroom. The main reporter was an author who signed with "-ei", which was Ernst Feigl . There were less reports of trials in Berlin or Vienna; the international show trials did not appear here and were discussed separately ( Scopes trial in America in 1925, Stalin's show trials, etc.)
- Stage and art: In addition to mixed news from the world of theater, the latest theater, opera and concert reviews were also presented here. The main reviewers for Prague included a. Heinrich Teweles and later Ernst Rychnowsky (usually draws with ER) Fritz Lehmann gave a lecture on architecture. The highlights of the column were the regular theater reviews by Alfred Polgar (sometimes only marked with ap). Reports from Berlin and Vienna were not uncommon here.
- Kleine Zeitung: A column for everything possible, probably the alternative point for things that are difficult to classify. Articles were found here that would have fit just as well in other categories.
- Serialized novels : was mostly on the penultimate page, in the advertising section, but in the first few years it was mixed up with the features section, often on page 1. The newspaper published six to twelve novels per year, sometimes several at the same time. The selection was quite bizarre and strangely sets itself apart from the otherwise extraordinarily good taste of the editorial team. Nevertheless, in addition to long-forgotten novels, there were also masterpieces from time to time, for example by Jerome K. Jerome , Vicky Baum , Roda Roda , Max Brod or by Thomas Mann ( Der Zauberberg - Vorabdruck). The illustrations - an attraction of the daily newspaper - did not come from the books, but were specially made for the sequels.
- Cartoons: From the end of the 1920s, caricatures and joke drawings were increasingly included in the editions, most of which came from internationally known satirical papers. A small part was originally drawn for the “Tagblatt”. It is remarkable that the star draftsman of Simplicissimus Thomas Theodor Heine contributed many original drawings here after his emigration in 1933.
Sunday edition
The above categories were also available on Sundays, but efforts were made to spread a few features more than during the week without special categories in the newspaper. Added to that
- Onkel Franz / Prager Kinderzeitung: The children's supplement with stories and poems for children and especially by children. Great authors rarely published here. There were of course exceptions, B. Stories by Else Ury u. some texts by Erich Kästner reprinted. For a long time she appeared on Saturdays.
- Chess: The most interesting games by famous chess players of that time have been published here. Proposals for solutions to the problems posed could be submitted, which were later commented on or awarded a prize.
In addition, there was later another so-called entertainment supplement (fully intact again from January 1919) with the following content:
- Fiction of the entertainment supplement : Two newspaper pages were devoted exclusively to the narrative prose and the poem. At first it was simply called "Entertainment supplement" and from around 1928 "Der Sonntag". Here emphasis was placed on internationalism, and the author's city of origin is often shown next to the author. French and Russian authors were printed particularly frequently, but so were the female writers from Berlin.
- The book table: literary reviews , mostly written by renowned authors, superseded by their own book supplement around 1926.
- From the world of film: rubric from the early twenties, later replaced by an independent film supplement. Film reviews and actor gossip, rarely from great journalists, articles are usually only marked with abbreviations.
- Fashion articles: Two to three reports and reflections on the fashion of the time, almost always with drawings. During the 1920s, the main article was mostly written by Claire Patek , a stylistically weak but extremely well-versed Viennese journalist when it came to fashion.
The Prager Tagblatt as a historical source
The Prager Tagblatt occupies a special position. Originally entrusted with the task of informing the German Bohemians and Sudeten Germans equally about Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria, it not only offers a panoramic view of all three countries, but the authors also fall back on more basic facts than the employees of other contemporary papers, what makes it easier to understand the context in today's reading. In addition, because of its location in liberal Prague, the newspaper was also able to print critical reports without having to fear the censorship of the individual countries too much.
Last but not least, the Prager Tagblatt had excellent reporters; Hardly any other German-language newspaper was so close to the events of the First World War and was able to report independently in German on National Socialism for a long time after 1933. The reports by Scheuermann from the Western Front from 1914, the Germany reports by Eugen Szatmari from the early 1920s and the many anonymous reports from the hot spots of world events from the 1890s to the end of the newspaper in 1938 deserve special mention .
Max Brod on the Prager Tagblatt
“It was a will-o'-the-wisp plantation. Those big newspapers in Paris etc. stopped on the facade. In the Prager Tagblatt everything was rejected that even reminiscent of the façade-like imposing or animal-serious (that's what they called it here). The Prager Tagblatt was edited according to a completely different principle. It was a European curiosity, known as such in professional circles and far beyond them. A sight that was unparalleled anywhere. […] It was an excellently informative, reliably made paper, clever and spirited, liberal without ringing storm bells, colorful and interesting, in some articles of a good literary level and almost without kitsch. Everyone who worked on it set his ambition to do his thing as perfectly as possible, concisely, without phrases, with the use of all nerves. But in doing so one gave the impression that everything was going on effortlessly, just as if for fun. " (From Rebellious Hearts. )
See also the new edition under the title Prager Tagblatt. An editorial's novel. Fischer, Berlin 1968:
Collaborators and often printed authors
When Ernst Feigl joined the editorial team in 1919 and worked for the newspaper in particular as a court reporter, the theater critic Ludwig Steiner, the sports reporter Siegfried Raabe-Jenkins and the editor Rudolf Keller worked alongside the editor-in-chief Sigmund Blau.
Hans Bauer , Benjamin M. Bloch , Alfred Döblin , Martin Feuchtwanger , Egon Friedell , Stefan Großmann , Julius Gundling , Hans Habe , Arnold Hahn , Jaroslav Hašek , Arnold Höllriegel , Elisabeth Janstein , Siegfried Jacobsohn , Franz Kafka , Theodor Lessing , Michal Mareš , Ferenc Molnár , Hans Natonek , Vítězslav Nezval , Leo Perutz , Karel Poláček , Heinrich Rauchberg , A. Walther Rittrich , Walther Rode , Alice Rühle-Gerstel , Paul Schlesinger , Walter Seidl , Gisela Selden-Goth , Hans Siemsen , Friedrich Torberg , Robert Walser .
Editorial offices with which articles were exchanged
- Berliner Tageblatt
- Vossische Zeitung Berlin
- Weltbühne , formerly Schaubühne Berlin
- The Berlin day book
- Frankfurter Zeitung
- New Free Press Vienna
Trivia
In 1913, Gustav Hochstetter published an almost prophetic short story about mobile telephony . On medical advice, a company boss is supposed to recharge his batteries by walking in silence, when in the seclusion of the mountains he suddenly hears something from his backpack - his wife calls him: “Yes, yes, Ludwig, you're amazed? That thing cost a lot of money. A completely new invention: the portable, wireless telephone in miniature format. "
literature
- Joseph Roth: Homesick for Prague. Feuilletons - glosses - reports for the 'Prager Tagblatt' . Edited and commented by Helmuth Nürnberger. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1168-8 .
Web links
- Editions digitized by the Austrian National Library : Prager Tagblatt (online at ANNO ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Christmas in the Prager Tagblatt Radio Praha on December 24, 2018
- ↑ Dieter Sudhoff : The fly prince of Arcadia. Notes on the life and writing of the Prague poet Ernst Feigl, in: Hartmut Binder (Ed.): Prague Profiles: Forgotten Authors in the Shadow of Kafka. Berlin: Mann 1991 p. 345
- ↑ Joseph Strelka: Hans Habe. Author of humanity . Tübingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-7720-8612-0 , p. 11 .
- ↑ Gustav Hochstetter: Walking in silence . In: Prager Tagblatt of August 17, 1913, page 3. See ANNO.ONB , last accessed on December 10, 2013