Union Verlag Berlin

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Union Publishing House
legal form GmbH
founding October 11, 1951
Seat Charlottenstrasse 79, GDR-1080 Berlin
Number of employees 60
Branch Book publisher

The Unionsverlag was a party own business the GDR block party Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , based in Berlin .

history

1951-1989

After the bloc parties were founded, they were given their own publishers and printers. Union Verlag was founded for the East German CDU on October 11, 1951 and incorporated into the Union Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH group of companies that had already been established on February 3, 1951 . This holding, known as VOB Union from 1952 , belonged to newspaper publishers (including the party newspaper " Neue Zeit "), a chain of Christian bookshops under the name Wort und Werk as well as several hotels and restaurants.

In addition to internal CDU publications, the book publisher mainly published books on the subject

  • Religion, religious studies, religious history, including the free churches in the GDR
  • History of culture and art
  • sacred architecture, especially the church guide series The Christian Monument (from 1953)
  • Fiction

From 1959 until his death in 1965, the writer Johannes Bobrowski was the editor of fiction at the publishing house. Other lecturers were Gerhard Desczyk (1956–), Günter Wirth (1964–1970) and Karl-Heinrich Bieritz (1986–). In January 1960 Hubert Faensen became deputy chief editor of the publishing house, from December 1, 1960 to 1982 he was director of the publishing house and performed the duties of chief editor.

The publishing house had around 60 employees and published 25-30 titles a year.

1990-1994

In the course of reunification, the VOB Union became the Union Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH again , to which the companies, which were also converted into independent GmbHs, remained subordinate. Like all GDR operations, they were subordinated to the Treuhandanstalt . After the CDU renounced this part of the property on November 15, 1990, the publishing house was renamed to Verlags-Anstalt Union Berlin in order to avoid name confusion with Union Verlag Stuttgart (Spectrum Group) and Unionsverlag Zurich.

On February 7, 1991, the book and newspaper publishers were sold by the Treuhandanstalt for 4,000,000 DM to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungs Verwaltungsgesellschaft .

In 1992 the name was changed to BVU Verlag GmbH Union Berlin and went 1993 in belonging to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Koehler & Amelang -Verlagsgruppe on, Koehler & Amelang was until 1989 even a company of VOB Union have been. In 1994 the company finally joined the group of FAZ book publishers (Prestel and DVA) based in Munich. In the second half of the 1990s, no more books were published under the name Union Verlag, and from 1999 it no longer appeared in the address book of the German book trade. The rights of the publisher remained with the FAZIT Foundation .

The daily newspaper Neue Zeit appeared for the last time on July 5, 1994.

literature

  • Ten years of Union-Verlag 1951–1961 . Union-Verlag, Berlin 1961.
  • Hans Baier: Christian publishing work in the service of socialist construction . In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (Leipzig) 128, 1961, pp. 647–649.
  • Q .: 966 titles in two decades . In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel (Leipzig) 138, 1971, pp. 899–903.
  • Gunda Beuthien: The Union publishing house of the Eastern CDU. Origin and development of the publishing house until the 1960s, taking into account its relationships with the publishing houses Koehler & Amelang and Wolfgang Jess . In: Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte 10, 2000, pp. 249–340.
  • Christoph Links : The fate of the GDR publishers. Privatization and its consequences . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-595-9 , pp. 263-265.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Hubert Faensen: Bobrowski as editor at Union Verlag . In: Text + criticism Heft 165, München 2005, S. 28–39.
  2. HRB 36383, AG Berlin-Charlottenburg, founded on April 10, 1990.