University bookstore and publisher Friedrich Cohen

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The Friedrich Cohen university bookstore was an important business in Bonn in the 19th century .

prehistory

On November 24, 1828, Aimé Constant Fidèle Henry († February 23, 1873 in Bonn) and Maximilian Cohen (born July 4, 1806 in Bonn; † November 10, 1865 in Bonn) signed a contract in Bonn to set up a lithographic institute. Aimé Henry contributed his artistic skills, his botanical knowledge and his connections to the Bonn scholarly world. Maximilian Cohen provided the starting capital of 2,000 silver thalers. It is true that since the founding of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (1818) there were already two academic publishing bookstores. However, these mainly produced works in the humanities. The university was founded with a focus on medicine and science. The rented shop was located at Sternenstrasse 308 (today Sternstrasse 28). In 1833 the company received the title of "Lithographic Institute of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität". On May 6, 1835, the bookseller's license was granted. Around 1840 the company moved to new premises at Markt 453 (today No. 24). On December 31, 1861, the company was divided. Henry ran a book, art and lithography institute at Remigiusstrasse 45. His second oldest son, Carl Johann Hubert Henry, continued this institute until 1894.

Maximilian Cohen kept the book trade and publishing house and took his son Friedrich Cohen on as a partner in 1862. The works appeared with the imprint "Verlag von Max Cohen & Sohn (Fr. Cohen), then under" Friedrich Cohen "until 1891. A special feature was the publication of the engraving of the Sistine Madonna by Joseph von Keller . The sheet was popular for decades The second oldest son Gustav, who had already headed the music department, set up his own name with a paper and music shop (Markt 11) in 1871. He took over the representation of the Kladderadatsch and dispatched the Kölnische Zeitung .

Development and expansion

Friedrich Moritz Cohen (* July 5, 1836 in Bonn, † July 30, 1912 in Bonn) expanded the range in 1861 with an antiquarian bookshop. In 1875 the business moved to its own house at Kaiserplatz 18. In 1891 the old newspaper publisher was bought by Neusser. A branch at Am Hof ​​22 was opened in 1892, the second-hand bookshop remained on Kaiserplatz. In 1898 Friedrich Cohen acquired the house of reading (Bonn) Am Hof ​​30 and relocated all activities there. The son Heinrich Cohen (born October 5, 1877 in Bonn) took over the art shop in 1912 and ran it at Am Hof ​​14. Heinrich Cohen fell on March 12, 1915 in Champagne. The son Fritz Cohen (born July 6, 1872 in Bonn, † April 1, 1927 in Bonn) had been in charge of the assortment, second-hand bookshop and publishing house since July 1, 1912. Up to the beginning of the First World War, the publishing house mainly published natural and medical science books. In 1920 Fritz Cohen brought his friend Eckard Klostermann into the company to expand the philosophical and humanities branch of the publishing house. From 1924 Vittorio Klostermann also worked in an antiquarian bookshop and publishing house. In autumn 1933, the humanities branch of the publishing house was sold to Gerhard Schulte-Bulmke in Frankfurt.

The second-hand bookshop sent its catalogs throughout the German Reich. The acquisition and sale of the manuscript archive of Alexander Posonyi (Vienna) from 1899 onwards was significant.

The art dealership department became important through exhibitions of contemporary German artists in the house's art salon. Including: 1907 exhibition of the Dresden group Brücke (artist group) , 1913 exhibition of Rhenish expressionists. These were mediated by the brother Walter Cohen , who as an art historian gave essential impetus. After the early death of Fritz Cohen in 1927, his widow Hedwig Cohen, née Bouvier, steered the business through the economic crisis at the end of the 20s and the beginning of the 30s. The daughter Dora Strucken worked in the shop, the son Klaus Cohen was training as a bookseller.

Aryanization and decline

During the period of consolidation, the Nazi boycott measures hit the company hard, which began in the early 1930s. Friedrich Cohen and his wife Helena (born October 9, 1839 in Cologne; † April 2, 1914 in Bonn) were baptized Protestants in Hamburg in 1881, their children and their grandchildren Friedrich Frederic Cohen (born June 23, 1904 in Bonn; † 9 March 1967 in New York City), Dora († 1967 in London) and Klaus Cohen / Bouvier (* 1910 in Bonn; † June 15, 1994 in Greenwich, Connecticut) in the first year of life, but the company was considered Jewish. That is why it has been operating under the name H. Bouvier & Co. since 1937. Hedwig Cohen-Bouvier, under the pressure of persecution, felt compelled to accept the managing director Herbert Grundmann, who had been appointed on March 7, 1938, as a partner. He knew how to take advantage of the favorable opportunity, as with the acquisition and sale of the library of the persecuted musicologist Georg Kinsky . Fritz and Hedwig Bouvier's children had emigrated to Great Britain and the USA and did not return to Germany after the war. Hedwig Bouvier therefore sold her share in the company and the property at Am Hof ​​30 in 1953 to Herbert Grundmann, who took over the bookstore and publisher. According to the entry in the commercial register at the Bonn District Court HR A 402, the company ceased to exist on September 15, 1972.

The attempt by his son Thomas Grundmann to capitalize on the reunification after the fall of the GDR was absent and led to bankruptcy in 2003. The business fell to Thalia Holding , which closed the Am Hof ​​30 store in 2013. In 2019, the Thalia bookstore will be located at Am Markt 24, where the bookstore and publishing house had been based for many years from 1840.

literature

  • One hundred years of Friedrich Cohen Bonn. Presented to the friends of the Friedrich Cohen company in the year of its centenary . Bonn on the Rhine 1929
  • Theodor A. Henseler: University bookstore and publisher H. Bouvier u. Co. , in: Bonner Geschichtsblätter Vol. 7, 1953
  • Klaus HS Schulte: Bonn Jews and their descendants until around 1930 , Verlag Ludwig Röhrscheid, Bonn 1976, ISBN 3-7928-0383-6
  • Herbert Grundmann, editor: Bouvier 1828 - 1978 . Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, Bonn 1978, ISBN 3-416-01454-5
  • Helga Fremerey-Dohnau and Renate Schoene, arrangement: Jüdisches Geistesleben in Bonn 1786 - 1945 , Verlag Ludwig Röhrscheid, Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-7928-0489-1
  • Erich Cohen: Preserved - life under protective hands , page 491 - 502, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-930250-30-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A branch of the Thalia bookstore chain, the successor to the Cohen / Bouvier company, has been located at this address since 2010. See: Metropol (Bonn)
  2. ↑ Maximilian had been a member of the "Reading and Recreation Society in Bonn" since 1838, Friedrich since 1862.
  3. ↑ An overview of the publishing house production can be found for the Maximilian era p. 29, the Friedrich era p. 21f., The Fritz era p. 24ff. in Jewish Spiritual Life in Bonn 1786 - 1945 .
  4. ↑ In 1930 he founded the Vittorio Klostermann publishing house in Frankfurt ( https://www.klostermann.de/ ). After Cohen's publishing activity came to a virtual standstill, numerous authors found acceptance with him.
  5. ↑ "a world-famous autograph collection of 66,000 pieces, the only one of its kind," as the Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel wrote in 1912, no. 78, p. 4272.
  6. ↑ Commercial register online: [1] (viewed on April 26, 2019, registration required, subject to a charge)
  7. ↑ See BIFFF 2003: [2]
  8. ^ Ebba Hagenberg-Miliu: University bookstore Bouvier. Sad end of a book era . In: General-Anzeiger , July 29, 2013.