Tarantula (magazine)

Tarantula - Satirical monthly of the Soviet zone
description	Cold War satirical magazine
language	German
publishing company	Freiheitsverlag Leipzig / Soviet Zone Heinrich Bär Verlag (Germany)
First edition	1950
attitude	1962
Frequency of publication	per month
Sold edition	up to 250,000 copies
Editor-in-chief	Heinz W. Wenzel alias Heinrich Bär
editor	Heinz W. Wenzel alias Heinrich Bär

The Tarantel was a satirical monthly magazine that was produced in West Berlin from 1950 to 1962 and was intended for distribution in the GDR .

history

The journalist Heinz Willi Wenzel (1919–1971) alias "Heinrich Bär" applied to the French press office in West Berlin in 1946 for a license for a satirical magazine called "Brennglas". Wenzel, who at that time worked as a volunteer at the Soviet news office in Berlin-Weißensee , was arrested by the NKVD on July 31, 1946 and locked up in the NKVD assembly camp in Hohenschönhausen . After spending three and a half years in the Sachsenhausen special camp , the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp , without trial , he was released in January 1950. During this imprisonment the idea arose to take revenge on the communist rulers in the form of caricatures , whispering jokes and satire and to make the regime in East Berlin look ridiculous.

After his release from prison, he moved to West Berlin in 1950, where he initially received unemployment benefits from the employment office for scientists and artists . He now also took care of the contacts made by fellow inmates who had not been released, including visiting an American friend of a fellow inmate, who became the decisive contact for the future. Wenzel never revealed the exact identity of this connection.

In 1958, the Finnish film director and politician Jörn Donner , who was then a columnist for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter , wrote in his report from Berlin :

“I was led to the founder, the boss, the soul of it all, the engine, Heinrich Bär. A small, black-haired, black-bearded, narrow-shouldered man with glasses who has an extraordinary energy that is released in quick jolts through his surroundings [...] "

- Jörn Donner : Report from Berlin

founding

From May 27 to 30, 1950, the first youth meeting in Germany took place in East Berlin . Heinrich Bär, as Heinz Willi Wenzel now called himself, had at this time received approval for a three-month trial phase to publish his satirical monthly magazine, for which he no longer wanted to use the name magnifying glass as planned , but chose the name tarantula because people usually react obsessively to this animal's sting. In the context of the propaganda for the Germany meeting, he invited journalists and caricaturists from West Berlin newspapers to a meeting in an outbuilding of the SPD- related daily Telegraf on Bismarckplatz in Berlin-Grunewald . Many well-known caricaturists appeared at this meeting, such as Fritz Behrendt , who had just been released from prison in the GDR and who was later to draw for the FAZ , among others . A political satirical magazine against the GDR was drafted under the title "Tarantula". Many borrowings came from the magazine Der Insulaner published by Günter Neumann , which never reached the desired readership due to its intellectual claim and was soon discontinued.

Under Bär's aegis , the first sheet was created with impressive caricatures and collages as well as succinct short texts and jokes. A picture of Stalin appeared on the front page with the headline “One people! An empire! How earlier! ”, A modification of the National Socialist slogan“ One people, one empire, one leader ”. The colorfully designed new magazine was distributed free of charge in a print run of 10,000 copies (“Price: unaffordable”) and was sold out after a few hours. The sheet was published without an imprint , from the third edition in December 1950 with the subtitle "Satirical Monthly Magazine of the GDR" and an imprint with the indication "Freiheitsverlag Leipzig (Soviet Zone), editor-in-chief Heinrich Bär, alternative address: West Berlin, Postfach 11, Charlottenburg 9".

Successful further development

The first edition was still in A4 format, but it was not suitable for crossing the border into the eastern part of the city because it could be easily spotted during the usual border controls. The format was therefore changed to DIN A5 with eight pages, which made it easier to send the booklets by post. The circulation was multiplied and the booklets were distributed to East Berlin residents as supplements to West Berlin newspapers.

After the success of the first special issue, the parties, unions, the RIAS and anti-communist organizations such as the Combat Group Against Inhumanity and the Investigative Committee of Freedom Jurists contacted Bär , who also wanted to distribute the paper free of charge. The second edition therefore already appeared with a print run of 50,000 copies. In addition to hand distribution and as a newspaper supplement, larger quantities were sent by post to confidants in the eastern zone, who then took over the further distribution.

In addition to the regular monthly issues, special issues on current events appeared again and again. In December 1951, a year before Stalin's death, one appeared to contest under the slogan: "Who can build the Stalin Mausoleum ?" There was a prize for the next tarantula output of 100  marks awarded for the best suggestion of the month and 300 marks for the best overall proposal after the end of the competition.

The response to this was overwhelming, the editorial team received over 18,000 letters in the next ten months, suggestions such as dung heaps , latrines and gallows were submitted, but these were excluded from the competition. Many of the senders were arrested by the Stasi for participating and sentenced to severe sentences.

The magazine reached an average circulation of 270,000 copies per issue by October 1957. The SPD's east office also regularly purchased large quantities of the magazine.

Booklet structure

A basic structure had developed by mid-1951, which was retained until it was discontinued in 1962 after 124 monthly issues and 40 special editions.

• The booklet was eight pages long.
• The format was DIN A5.
• On the title page was the caricature of the month under the words "Tarantula - Satirical Monthly Magazine of the Soviet Zone" and the image of the tarantula. From August 1955, the front page was underlaid with a spider web. The price was stated as "priceless".
• On the two middle pages, five double-column caricatures were framed by longer texts. A short thriller with Vopo commissioner Schlippenzick and his assistant Mackebusch was regularly found here.
• The column Ask Ms. Sowjette with the heading “In all questions of social development and in all dialectical doubts, Ms. Sowjette brings you advice and help” had a permanent place . Here satirical answers were given to all questions of communist everyday life. An example from the May 1955 edition:

Oberfeldwebel Platzek, KVP , Gera:
“I am amazed that despite my high monthly salary as a member of the KVP, I don't have to pay any taxes. Can you tell me the reason for this? "
Ms. Soviet replied:
" As a member of our proud national army, you are not there to pay taxes, but to consume them. "

• On the last page there was information for readers about contact options for the editors with changing alternative addresses as well as the imprint and the note: "Without a license from the Soviet military government under the strictest persecution of the NKVD and the SSD ". The imprint expressly stated: "Reprinting is only permitted if the source of origin ('tarantula') is stated".

The contributions always criticized the communist system of the GDR, the Soviet occupying power and their propaganda ; contributions were often written in GDR propaganda jargon. The verbal and caricature contributions were always very hearty and vehemently anti-communist and should not be too ironic so that the audience understood them. The caricatures were based on the models Simplicissimus and Kladderadatsch . Caricatures of the rulers Walter Ulbricht and Wilhelm Pieck , for whom the nicknames Der Spitzbart and Wilhelm III. were coined.

Employees and editorial rooms

The publishing house only employed a few permanent employees, all of whom had cover names for vicious animals in order to protect themselves from persecution by the Stasi. They were employed on a pro forma basis by the Grunewald Graphic Society , which was responsible for printing the magazine. A total of up to two dozen permanent employees worked for the publishing house.

• Heinz W. Wenzel alias Heinrich Bär - Editor-in-Chief
• Walter Schulz-Heidorf alias Wolfram Wolf - Deputy Editor-in-Chief
• Klaus Kunkel - head of duty
• Erika Wenzel alias Frau Bär - secretary
• "Buckle" - secretary
• Arne Gisli Th. Alias ​​Mr. Fuchs - editorial assistant

The cartoonists and copywriters worked on a fee basis and at the same time also worked for other newspapers. They included Fritz Behrendt ("igel"), Peter Reimann, "pit", "zwick", Chlodwig Poth , Gerhard Vogler ("Vau"), " Oskar ", "zel", "Urban", "fax", " Emmes ”,“ Harbin ”,“ hai ”,“ pero ”from Brno,“ CAT ”,“ Zoltan ”from Hungary ,“ Pinguin ”(Gerhard Kurth),“ tüte ”and many others.

The "Bär office" was initially located in the premises of the SPD-affiliated Telegraf newspaper on Bismarckplatz in Berlin-Grunewald . As early as 1951, the editorial team was able to use three additional rooms at Mommsenstrasse 27, which were provided by the Association of People Persecuted by the Nazi regime . The BVN was founded by former members of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) , who, under the leadership of the CDU politician Peter Lütsches, formed their own anti-communist association closely related to the CDU. He received generous financial support from the CDU-led federal government and US intelligence agencies.

With the renaming of the Leipzig publishing house to Heinrich Bär Verlag in 1956, the publishing house moved to a new building in Joachimsthaler Strasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg . However, as the rooms quickly became too small, the publishing house finally moved to Stresemannstrasse 30 in Kreuzberg in 1958 , where it was based until the end of the paper and the liquidation of Tarantelpress Verlag in 1968.

Contacts to Eulenspiegel

Several employees of the Tarantel came from the East Berlin satirical magazine Eulenspiegel or its predecessor Frischer Wind , which is why there were always private connections between the two editorial offices and the Tarantel editorial team was very well informed about what was going on at Eulenspiegel . Some Eulenspiegel employees also fled to the West and were temporarily housed with the tarantula . These included the caricaturist and copywriter Peter Reimann from Leipzig, who had worked at Frischen Wind , the draftsman “Pause”, who, like his partner “Holz”, had fled the state security, and the employee of the BZ am Abend and the Illustrierte Rundschau Merzbach.

In November 1955, Klaus Kunkel, the head of Eulenspiegel's service , fled to West Berlin. Wenzel managed to find him and to recruit him for the publishing house, where he also became head of the service. Under his direction, a forged "special edition" of Eulenspiegel was then created in September under the title "Explosives Sonderheft", which was confusingly similar to the original. Efforts had been made to imitate the appearance, the print, the drawing style of the Eulenspiegel caricaturists, the paper and the printing ink as closely as possible, whereby the matt red of the Eulenspiegel was particularly difficult to imitate. Klaus Kunkel , who worked for Eulenspiegel just six months ago, appeared in the imprint . This special edition was handed to the astonished East visitors of the Green Week . All Eulenspiegel employees also received a copy, and the foreign visitors who had come to celebrate the ten-year Eulenspiegel anniversary found a “special edition” in their rooms in the GDR guest house Johanishof .

Stasi spying

After the political change , Walter Schulz-Heidorf, the former deputy editor-in-chief and author of a book about the tarantula , had the opportunity to inspect the Stasi files in the Gauck authority . While the measures taken by the Stasi against the tarantula were initially limited to the confiscation of the magazine and the prosecution of distributors such as Johann Burianek or Friedhelm Thiedig , from 1959 the then Department V (predecessor of Department XX) set up an offensive concept against Bär-Verlag. The Stasi had already tried to spy on the publisher beforehand, for which a former fellow inmate Wenzels from Sachsenhausen was assigned. However, these operations turned out to be relatively unproductive. Only when a cleaning lady was employed as “GM König” from March 1960 onwards did the Stasi obtain detailed information.

attitude

After the Wall was built on August 13, 1961, sales to the GDR across the sector border were no longer possible and a large number of informants from the GDR and other Eastern Bloc countries could no longer be reached. With every person who fled, another potential reader was lost. Three more issues appeared, and with the number 124 in April 1962, the magazine was discontinued because the target group had mainly been lost.

When the publishing house was liquidated in 1968, all documents were destroyed so that they could not fall into the hands of the Stasi. Heinrich W. Wenzel died in June 1971 of liver cirrhosis and circulatory failure . It was never known who his sponsors were.

literature

• Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless - the 'tarantula' . Hot reading in the Cold War. Anita Tykve Verlag Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-925434-92-5 .

Web links

• The sting of the tarantula - hot reading in the Cold War. Background information. The Federal Archives, June 15, 2013, accessed on December 16, 2015 . 
• Political brochures in the Cold War. German Historical Museum, accessed on December 16, 2015 . 
• Horst Koch: Hot reading in the Cold War: Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless - The "Tarantula": Hot reading in the Cold War . Edition Luisenstadt, 1998, accessed on January 31, 2016 (review)
• Photos and documents. Tarantula. Satirical monthly of the Soviet zone. Federal Foundation Reconstruction, 2015, accessed on December 16, 2015 . 
• Christian Esch: The zone is laughing here. The "tarantula" and the Cold War joke. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 21, 1998, accessed on December 16, 2015 . 
• Hans-Joachim Krohberger: The tarantula. Epoch 3, accessed on December 16, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 31-35 .
2. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 104 .
3. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 75 .
4. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 49 .
5. ↑ Because of this party-political orientation, on May 9, 1953, the SPD federal executive passed an incompatibility resolution on simultaneous membership in the SPD and BVN. Compare: Kristina Meyer, Persecution, Displacement, Mediation: The SPD and those persecuted by the Nazis . In: The practice of reparation: history, experience and impact in Germany and Israel , Norbert Frei, José Brunner and Constantin Goschler (eds.), Bonn: Federal Center for Political Education, 2010, (= publication series of the Federal Center for Political Education; Vol. 1033), pp. 159-202, here p. 171. ISBN 978-3-8389-0033-9 .
6. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 83-85 .
7. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 172-175 .
8. ↑ Walter Schulz-Heidorf: Price priceless . S. 288 .