Walter publishing house
The Walter Publisher was originally a Catholic -oriented Swiss book and magazine publisher with a program which focuses on fiction , religion and later, increasingly, on the psychology of lying. The publishing house founded in Olten in 1916 , which was known as a literary publisher in the 1950s and 1960s, was taken over by the Patmos publishing house in 1992 and continued as Imprint .
Beginnings
In 1916 the journalist and writer Otto Walter took over the newspaper and printing company of the "Catholic Press Association" from Olten. Initially, the business activities of the Olten printing and publishing house Otto Walter extended mainly to commercial printing ; In addition, Walter published small brochures of political and ideological content such as Rome or Wittenberg? from Robert Mäder , your blessings from Ferdinand Rüegg (anti-Protestant pamphlets) or away with state absolutism. Walter also published the “Organ of Catholic Young Switzerland” Die Schildwache , a weekly newspaper that he had been editing since 1912.
Since Otto Walter was aiming for a larger publishing company, he converted it into a stock corporation in 1921 . The first few years of the AG were shaped by the development of the magazine publisher, which among other things published the Catholic illustrated magazines Sunday and Week im Bild . After the book publisher mainly published calendars in the first few years, from 1925 the publishing program became increasingly broad, both in the field of non-fiction and in fine literature . Since 1924 the publishing house had a branch in Konstanz , which was relocated to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1937 . Among the authors who were published during Otto Walter's lifetime were the popular young adult author Franz Heinrich Achermann , Carl Robert Enzmann , Heinrich Herm and Gonzague de Reynold .
In 1940 Otto Walter resigned from the board of directors for health reasons and resigned as director. In the same year, a subsidiary was founded with Urs Graf Verlag , which was to specialize in art books. Otto Walter died in 1944 as a result of an accident.
post war period
Even after the founder's death, the publishing program remained largely within the Catholic-conservative framework, but it became steadily wider. The publications up to 1956 included, for example, new editions of the herbal books by "Herb Pastor" Johann Künzle , but also novels by Louis de Wohl , numerous works by Friedrich Dessauer or musicians' biographies in a "Musician Series".
Change under Otto F. Walter
From 1956, the literary program of the Walter Verlag was directed by the writer Otto F. Walter , Otto Walter's youngest child. Under his leadership, the program began to change to the literary avant-garde of the time with authors such as Alfred Andersch , Peter Bichsel , Alfred Döblin , Helmut Heißenbüttel and Ernst Jandl , which made Walter Verlag an important literary publisher for a number of years. From 1966 a complete edition of Edgar Allan Poe's works was published in new translations a. a. by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger .
The shareholders and publishers of Walter Verlag, who were still strongly Catholic, were dissatisfied with Otto F. Walter's design of the literary program, but let him stand for a few years. It was not until the publication of Ernst Jandl's Laut and Luise in 1966 that they no longer wanted to tolerate; they saw in Jandl's variation of the first Genesis verse "In the beginning was the word" an intolerable mess and Otto F. Walter was dismissed without notice at the end of 1966.
The last few decades
The complete edition of Carl Gustav Jung's works has been published by Walter Verlag since the 1960s . In the following years and decades the importance of (Jungian) psychology in the publishing program a. a. with the very successful works of Verena Kast and Eugen Drewermann . But publishing dares were also taken, for example when they brought out "one of the most idiosyncratic psychoanalytic books dealing with religious phenomena", Wilhelm Reichs Christusmord . The literary program was continued to a limited extent, for example with the Döblin edition. Another mainstay was a series of travel guides.
In the early 1990s, the publishing house ran into financial difficulties and was taken over in 1992 by the Patmos publishing house in Düsseldorf (now the Patmos publishing group based in Mannheim ). The Swiss headquarters of the publishing house were relocated first to Solothurn , then to Zurich . In addition, the product range was split up: The magazine Sonntag was taken over in 1994 by CAT Medien AG in Baden, Switzerland . In the end, the books of the Patmos publishing house only appeared in Düsseldorf. As part of Patmos, the Walter program focused as much as possible on psychology and help with life and advice literature. The non-fiction books have also been published under the Patmos brand since 2007, which meant that Walter Verlag's existence as a label was temporarily ended. At the end of 2009, Patmos separated the subject areas of psychology and religion. The Walter Verlag label with a focus on psychology was reactivated. Walter's autumn 2010 program includes the five areas “Memoir”, “Parents & Children”, “Better Living”, “Help in Life” and “Partnership”. No book has been published under the Walter Verlag label since 2011. The publishing archive of Otto Walter Verlag for the years 1950 to 1980 (approximately) is located in the Swiss Literature Archive .
literature
- Anniversary publication of the Otto Walter AG Olten publishing house: 1921–1946. Olten 1946.
- Elsbeth Schild-Dürr: Otto F. Walter - Exclusion zone and desired country: a work biography . Benteli, Bern 1992, ISBN 3-7165-0795-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schild-Dürr, p. 52.
- ↑ Wilhelm Reich: Christ Murder. Olten and Freiburg / Br: Walter 1978; Quote from the book by Klaus-M, published by Walter in the same year. Kodalle: discomfort with Jesus. A challenge from psychoanalysis to theology. Olten and Freiburg / Br: Walter 1978, p. 52
- ^ Publisher profile Patmos (archive version) ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), In future all non-fiction books will be grouped under the Patmos brand. (...) Titles on psychology and life support that would have previously been published by Walter Verlag will be included in the Patmos program from 2007. Archived in the Internet Archive as of September 28, 2007 , accessed on May 19, 2010.
- ^ Walter Verlag: Autumn 2010 program (PDF) Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Accessed on March 14, 2020.
- ^ Swiss literary archive : Walter publishing archive. Retrieved March 11, 2020 .