Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft

Excerpt from a publication on the Temple of Edfu ( Egypt ) - for Pierer's Konversationslexikon

Extract from the dictionary of German spelling

The Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft was a German publisher based in Stuttgart , which mainly published books for young people, entertainment literature , book series and reference works. It existed from 1890 to 1978.

history

The publishing house was created through the merger of three Stuttgart publishers owned by the Kröner brothers , von Herrmann Schönlein (Adolf von Kröner took over this publishing house in 1888) and Wilhelm Spemann . The contract to merge the three publishers as a stock corporation was concluded on April 16, 1889 with effect from January 1, 1890. Adolf von Kröner became the publishing director as managing director . When Kröner handed over the management to the publisher and councilor Heinrich Beck, he became chairman of the supervisory board (until 1904). Wilhelm Spemann left as a partner after six years and re-founded his own publishing house.

In 1978 the publishing house was dissolved. In 1979 the company was re-established under the name Union Verlag Stuttgart . This in turn was bought by the Spektrum Verlag in 1981 , which in turn was taken over by the Munich-based Meisinger publishing group after its bankruptcy . Ultimately, the publishing house ended up with Middelhauve Verlags GmbH in 1998.

Publishing program

The yearbooks “ Der Gute Kamerad ” (youth stories by Karl May ), “ Das Neue Universum ” and, for girls, “Das Kränzchen” (all taken over by Spemann) were at the center of the publishing program . Various authors such as Berta Clement, Luise Glas and others wrote in “ Kränzchen ”. a. Else Ury contributed their youngest at. Schönlein's successful series “Library of Entertainment and Knowledge” was also continued and Kürschner's “General German Literature Calendar” was still published. The publishers E. Keil's Nachf. And JG Cotta were not part of the merger and were continued as independent companies.

The books for young people (the hobbyhorse of the newly founded publisher) up to the 1920s were primarily intended for a “better” audience and were of good quality. Due to their attractive appearance, they are popular with collectors today.

Publishing policy

Herrmann Schönlein (1833–1908) pursued the literary penetration of the readership all his life. He pursued idealistic goals up to and including his health-related job:

“... his intention was to offer the middle and lower classes of the people dignified entertainment and instruction in the form of artistically equipped journals, at a cheap price that was affordable even for the poorest, at that time considered impossible, from which Schönlein opened up new, extensive sales circles hoped for in the less well-to-do classes. ... "

Wilhelm Spemann (1844–1910) from Unna pursued hardly any other goals:

“... Spemann's activity was epoch-making through a number of outstanding undertakings, such as the Spemann Collection, one of the collective works reproduced from the French Michel Levy Collection, which aims to make German and foreign sample works accessible to the general public, and indeed that up until then translated into practice what was thought impossible; to offer an excellently printed and solidly bound volume for a cheap price (1 Mk.). ... "

Web links

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