Scherz publishing house

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The Scherz Verlag was a book publisher in Switzerland, which was founded 1939th It was taken over by the Frankfurt S. Fischer Verlag in 2003 after the Scherz Verlag had lost its independence in 1996 when it was sold to the Holtzbrinck Group . S. Fischer Verlag continues to publish books - especially suspense literature (crime thrillers) and memoirs - under the name Scherz.

history

The Scherz Verlag was founded by the bookseller Alfred Scherz. Alfred Scherz was born in Bern on October 28, 1903 . He was the son of Emma Scherz-Buchschacher from Eriswil and Ernst Scherz. His parents married in 1902. The father Ernst Samuel Scherz (1877–1957) worked as a director of the Bern Cantonal Bank. His paternal grandfather was Samuel Scherz (1842–1932), inspector of the poor as well as magistrate in Bern and co-founder of the Social Democratic Party in Bern. His paternal grandmother was Süsette Luchsinger, a silversmith in Bern (1838–1915). The ancestors of the family came from Frutigen and originally had the family name "Schärz". From the middle of the 19th century the family called themselves "Scherz". Alfred Scherz grew up with his two sisters Dora and Verena and his younger brother Ernst. His brother Ernst (born 1909) was the hotel director of the five-star superior hotel " Gstaad Palace " in Switzerland, which has been run by the Scherz family since 1938.

Alfred Scherz visited a. a. the business school in Neuchâtel. After attending the École de Commerce for a year, he completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in the GA Bäschlin bookshop in Bern from 1919 to 1922. After the owner's death in 1922, Alfred Scherz went to Paris and London for further training. From 1924 to 1926 Alfred Scherz was the first employee in the Rascher publishing house in Zurich. In 1926 Alfred Scherz married the soprano and concert singer Elsa Meister (July 3rd, 1901– October 19th, 1977). Elsa Meister was the daughter of Frieda Elsa Meister (1865–1939) and the manufacturer Carl Meister from Langenthal (1860–1930).

In 1926, Alfred Scherz acquired the GA Bäschlin bookstore, which he renamed "Alfred Scherz & Co." and at times used the sower as a signet .

The marriage of Alfred Scherz and Elsa Meister resulted in two daughters. The older daughter Sigrid Scherz (born 1927) married the bookseller Kurt Kirchhofer (born 1924) and the younger daughter Eva Scherz (born 1929) married the publisher Rudolf Streit (born 1928).

In 1932 Alfred Scherz moved from Amthausgasse to Marktgasse in Bern and on October 1st, 1939 founded the "Alfred Scherz Verlag". In 1950, Alfred Scherz and Henry Goverts (1892–1988) founded the “Scherz Goverts Verlag” in Stuttgart for distribution and licenses in the Federal Republic of Germany. In his free time, Alfred Scherz was a passionate painter. Numerous writers, musicians and painters frequented his hospitable house. Alfred Scherz died on December 4, 1956 in Bern.

After the sudden death of Alfred Scherz as a result of a heart attack, the family business was continued by their two sons-in-law. In 1957 the sons-in-law separated from Henry Goverts. With a partnership agreement of July 22, 1957, Scherz Verlag GmbH was established with its seat in Munich. Scherz Verlag AG Bern was the sole shareholder of Scherz Verlag GmbH Munich. From 1963, the family company was divided into two independent stock companies. Rudolf Streit-Scherz managed the business of “Scherz Verlag AG” and Kurt Kirchhofer-Scherz the “Buchhandlung Scherz AG”. In addition to Rudolf Streit-Scherz, the registered managing director at the registry court in Munich was his wife Eva Streit-Scherz, who worked as a bookseller, editor and publishing clerk in the company. Together with his second wife Ursula Streit (born 1940, grew up in Fulda) Rudolf Streit-Scherz managed the publishing house until it was sold to the Holtzbrink Group in 1996. In 1999 the Rudolf and Ursula Streit Foundation was established. Rudolf Streit-Scherz died on March 8, 2001 at the age of 73 after a serious illness.

successes

One of the greatest successes of Scherz Verlag is the first edition of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Archipelago Gulag . At the beginning, the publishing program mainly included English literature, authors such as Upton Sinclair , Pearl S. Buck , but also the memoirs of Winston Churchill . The publisher was later known for the German-language editions of the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming , whose rights they were able to secure from Glidrose Limited from around 1963 after the Ullstein Verlag had given them up. The Parnass Library series was also published by Scherz Verlag .

From 1947 the Scherz Verlag published temporarily as a bound edition (percale binding) and paperback series " Die Schwarze Kriminalromane ".

Identification mark

From 1979 onwards, one of the distinguishing marks of Scherz Verlag was the crime thriller logo, which was framed by a Mauser in 1934.

literature

  • Tenger, Paul et al. Schmid, Walter, "Alfred Scherz-Meister - publishing bookseller 1903–1956", Bern 1956
  • 60 years of joke, 1998
  • Article from March 9, 2001 in the media service of the Swiss communications industry
  • Kirchhofer-Scherz, Sigrid, "Scherz, Alfred" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 22, p. 706, Berlin 2005

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