Tourist publishing house

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VEB Tourist Verlag
founding   1977
resolution   1994
Seat   Berlin , Leipzig
Publisher number   1002-K3 / 64
genus   Maps, travel literature, etc. v. a.

The VEB Tourist Verlag , based in Berlin and Leipzig was the most important publisher of travel and tourism literature in the GDR .

history

The VEB Tourist Verlag went in 1977 from the VEB map Verlag Berlin indicate the department home and tourism literature of VEB FA Brockhaus publishing house Leipzig was incorporated.

After the political change in 1990, the publishing house was initially converted into a GmbH and shortly afterwards taken over by the Swiss company Kümmerly + Frey . The attempt to establish an independent brand "Tourist Verlag Kümmerly + Frey", however, quickly failed and was given up in 1994. Individual publishing titles and rights were sold to interested publishers. The publisher Michael Maaß acquired the remaining holdings in 1999 together with the name that had it protected at the Munich Patent Office . The Weimar publishing company , founded in 2008, took over the publishing name and activities.

At the beginning of 2016 the Tourist-Verlag was taken over by Knabe-Verlag Weimar , where it is continued as Imprint.

Publishing program

Like most non-fiction book publishers in the GDR, the Tourist-Verlag had a monopoly-like position in its area . The focus of the publishing activity was mainly on the basic supply of travel literature. In the 1980s, however, relatively high-priced special travel guides increasingly appeared, while at the same time normal maps , city ​​maps and travel guides were often in short supply.

The publishing program included the following series of publications:

Travel and traffic atlases as well as thematic maps and travel guides were also published.

With the takeover by Knabe Verlag Weimar in 2016, the latter expanded its publishing program, which until then consisted almost exclusively of postcards with motifs of Weimar sights and personalities, with a first new literary publication: The Weimar Cranach Altar. An Ernestine commitment to the Reformation , a non-fiction book with a tourist background by Elisabeth Asshoff.

Censorship, card falsification

Like all publishers in the GDR, VEB Tourist Verlag was also subject to advance censorship by the publishing and book trade headquarters in the Ministry of Culture as part of the printing approval process . In addition, the publication of maps required the approval of the Ministry of the Interior . Military objects were not allowed to be shown, industrial plants and railway lines were only allowed to be shown in a highly generalized manner. City maps have only been published in a distorted representation since 1967, showing the inner cities on a larger scale than the suburbs. For private purposes, only true-to-scale maps with a resolution of 1: 1.25 million or worse were allowed to be published.

Individual evidence

  1. Christoph Links: The fate of the GDR publishers: privatization and its consequences. 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-523-2 , pp. 81-82 ( books.google.de ).
  2. Steffen Knabe took over Tourist Verlag and Weimar maps. Thüringer Allgemeine, February 3, 2016, accessed on July 11, 2016 .
  3. ^ New publication from Tourist Verlag. Tourist Verlag, accessed on July 11, 2016 .
  4. Dagmar Unverhau: Card falsification as a result of excessive secrecy? An approach to the subject of the State Security's influence on the card system in the GDR. Lectures at the BStU conference from 8.-9. March 2001 in Berlin; Volume 5 of the Archive of the GDR State Security. 2002, ISBN 3-8258-5964-9 , p. 200 ( books.google.de ).
  5. Dagmar Unverhau: Map corruption… 2002, ISBN 3-8258-5964-9 , p. 167 ( books.google.de )