Volksstimme (Frankfurt am Main)

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Former administration building from 1929 on Bockenheimer Landstrasse

Volksstimme was the name of an influential social democratic daily newspaper initially only "for the Rhine and Maingau, Wetterau and Taunus", from 1906 "for south-west Germany" the one from December 25, 1889 (sample number) or regularly from January 2, 1890 to March 1, 1933 appeared in Frankfurt am Main . It achieved a sold circulation of up to 70,000 copies (1919). At first and again later it appeared temporarily under the title Frankfurter Volksstimme.

Title page of one of only three surviving copies for May 1st of the Volksstimme (Frankfurt) from the years before 1905.

history

In Frankfurt am Main there were two attempts to establish a social democratic newspaper as early as the 1870s. The Frankfurter Volksfreund published by Wilhelm Blos in 1875 failed after a short time; Karl Frohme's friend of the people a year later fell victim to the law in 1878 against the social democratic endeavors that were dangerous to the public.

The “Volksstimme” in Frankfurt was first published by the publishing house and as the head page of the SPD's own Offenbacher Abendblatt , and from May 1, 1890, it was given its own editor . From May 1, 1891, the sponsors were the publishing house of Volksstimme Maier & Co., which was founded especially for this purpose, and from March 13, 1916, the also party-owned Union-Druckerei- und Verlagsanstalt GmbH, both Frankfurt am Main , founded in early 1900 .

The newspaper appeared every day except Sundays. The sample number came out in an edition of 3,000 pieces, in 1894 the paper had around 6,000 buyers, in 1900 8,000, which was an excellent number in view of the strong competition from Frankfurt. In 1914 up to 45,000 readers read the newspaper, in 1918 up to 70,000 (with street sales), in 1928 40,000 and in 1931 there were 24,000 subscribers. The figures before 1929 are uncertain, however, as they come from different sources and it is not always clear whether the number of subscribers was counted with or without street sales.

Volksstimme editor Wilhelm Zander remembered the time up to the First World War :

“The editorial work in the Prussian-German authoritarian state was fraught with risks. By 1911, eight responsible editors - Gustav Hoch, Georg Maier, Wilhelm Schmidt, Max Quarck, Otto Zielowski, Wilhelm Zander, Oscar Quint and Richard Wittrisch - had a total of three years and eleven months in prison. At twenty-one months, Otto Zielowski, who was responsible for local things, was “most taxed”. Rarely has one of the responsible editors got away unplugged, all of them acquired their civil rights in [the prison] Preungesheim . In addition there were at least 60,000 to 70,000 marks in fines and court costs. For petty things that were not pursued at all in other areas, or at most with small fines, there were always prison or large fines in Frankfurt. In the twenty-one years, from 1890 to 1911, there were five and a half hours in prison and fifteen marks in fines and court costs for every number in the Volksstimme. One wanted to condemn; There were always reasons. ”(Quoted from: Moving the world with the printed word. Ninety years of Union-Druckerei 1900–1990. Frankfurt 1990, 12.)

The heyday of the 1920s and fall under National Socialism

In the mid-1920s, the Volksstimme publishing house was doing extremely well. The company had become a large printing company with 220 employees, plus 600 to 700 delivery women. In 1929 a new, large administration building was built at Bockenheimer Landstrasse 136-138, an architectural masterpiece in the New Building style based on plans by the architect Johann Wilhelm Lehr . With the rise of the Nazis came the decline of the social democratic press. The publisher's history says lapidarously: “The fight for the republic, which the newspaper waged with remarkable courage, was lost. Previously banned three times, the Volksstimme fell silent with its issue of March 1, 1933. "

The attempt to put the company on a different basis with a new daily newspaper adapted to the circumstances, the Mittags-Post, and thus also to secure the remaining jobs, failed. On May 5, 1933, armed SA occupied the printing and publishing building. Five days later, the State Secret Police drove up , confiscated the property, drove the personnel into the street, and sealed the doors. (Source: With the printed word ..., 18 f.)

The building on Bockenheimer Landstrasse was destroyed in World War II.

Locations

The newspaper is only partially preserved. Archival material that might still existed until 1933 only survived in gaps. In 1985 it was not possible to find more than three front pages of the newspaper from the years before 1906 for the volume Die Maifeier im Spiegel der Frankfurter Volksstimme . It was not until November 1905 that the newspaper was preserved - albeit with large gaps - in closed volumes, mainly due to a collection of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, which was filmed in 1953 in partly very poor quality , and a closed collection for the years 1920–1933 in Frankfurt, which due to its poor condition could not be reproduced even for the Union-Druckerei's anniversary book published in 1990.

There is therefore no evidence, for example, that Samuel Spier was the author of the Volksstimme, as HM Hensel writes in his biography Samuel Spiers. There is only one report from Selmar Spier , a distant relative, that his uncle received threatening letters with the address "You miserable Saujud ...", although not this one, but another "editor" of the left Frankfurt press with the same family name who was referring to it Was an author. However, several excerpts of the Volksstimme made by informers are preserved in the Hessian Main State Archives in Wiesbaden , in which Samuel Spier is mentioned, in connection with his base work for the Frankfurt cooperative movement in the 1890s up to 1902, which was suspiciously observed by the authorities

There are very few privately owned editions and fragments of the newspaper prior to 1905. In 1990 Union printing itself only had a single May 1 title page from before 1906.

Description of the colored title page of the Volksstimme of May 1, 1901:

The printed May poem ends with the verses:

You mammon servants, now be warned
To renew the raid on the people:
You, who are ensnared by vile greed,
The bread to us, the bread wants to sell!
Be forewarned, those by battle glory
The nations in chains want to forge;
We don't want any new hunnies
No, human welfare, freedom and peace!

“The May slogan of 1901, 'Against Brodwucher und Hunskurs', was deeply anti-militarist and directed against the policy of Wilhelm II. This had [in his, Hunnenrede the troops in 1900 to the massacre of the '] Chinese independence movement [so-called Europeans <Boxer Rebellion>] were dispatched asked, they should in China' as the Huns without open>. No Chinese should dare to “look peevishly” at a European.

The Social Democrats were - similar to the attitude of the SDAP leadership in the war against France in 1870 - against this imperialism, the effects of which the common people felt in the form of higher taxes - especially on bread, salt and petroleum. In June 1900, the Reichstag had adopted a naval bill against the votes of the Social Democrats . To finance this, drastically higher taxes, for example on grain and salt, had been decided.

The cooperative bakery, promoted in the political environment of the Volksstimme by Samuel Spier in Frankfurt, had also been founded to counter this 'usury' . However, this could only mitigate the effects of the war policy. With every new fleet submission, the price screw turned again. ”[Source: Hensel / Gatt-Rutter: Svevo-Spier, 254 f.]

Personalities

swell

  • Union-Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, Franz Neuland [compilation]: The May celebration in the mirror of the Frankfurter Volksstimme. A facsimile cross-section with historical explanations. Frankfurt a. M. 1985.
  • Union-Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, Dieter Schneider [Text]: Moving the world with the printed word. Ninety years of Union printing 1900–1990. Frankfurt a. M. 1990.
  • Hans Michael Hensel: "Samuel Spier" - Hans M. Hensel [ed.], John Gatt-Rutter: Italo Svevo, Samuel Spier's pupil. Segnitz 1996, 73-123.
  • Selmar Spier: Before 1914. Memories of Frankfurt written in Israel. Frankfurt 1961.

Web links

Commons : Volksstimme (Frankfurt am Main)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files