Weidmannsche Buchhandlung

The Weidmannsche bookstore was 1680 in Frankfurt am Main by Moritz Georg Weidmann founded in 1682 and after Leipzig laid. In 1854 the publishing house moved to Berlin with Karl August Reimer (1801–1858) . Weidmann Verlag still exists today with Georg Olms Verlag (based in Hildesheim ), specializing in scientific specialist literature and facsimile editions.

A number of important publishers and authors are associated with the company - among them Ernst Moritz Arndt , Adelbert von Chamisso , Christian Fürchtegott Gellert , Johann Caspar Lavater , Johann Gottfried Herder , Alexander von Humboldt , Christoph Martin Wieland , Jean Paul , the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel , the Brothers Grimm , Adolf Kaegi , Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Theodor Mommsen .

From 1848 to 1851 the Weidmannsche Buchhandlung published the leading liberal German newspaper .

genealogy

The company led:

Moritz Georg Weidmann (1658–1693)

Founded his publishing house in Frankfurt am Main in 1680, soon after moving to Leipzig, where he ran the company until his death in 1694. From the outset, he was interested in the sciences, especially classical philology. In the few years of his work - he died at the age of 36 - Weidmann had earned a high reputation, also at court, although he had to struggle with the censorship due to the publication of Christian Thomasius monthly books.

Johann Ludwig Gleditsch (1694–1717)

This bookseller, who has become famous beyond Germany's borders, played a decisive role in the successful path of the Weidmann bookstore. In 1694 he married the widow Weidmann and raised his stepson Moritz Georg Weidmann the Elder. J. as successor. Under Gleditsch's direction alone, 826 new publications appeared, an almost unbelievable number for the time.

Moritz Georg Weidmann (1713 / 1717–1743)

An astonishingly large number of important works appeared annually under his aegis. That Weidmann was rewarded with the golden necklace by the emperor in Vienna in an audience and that August the Strong was awarded the title of “Kgl. Polish and Electoral Saxon Court and Accisrat ”shows the high level of recognition Weidmann has achieved through his work for the general book trade.

Johann Wendler (1743–1746)

He ran the bookstore until he was recognized as a citizen of Leipzig, and then founded his own bookstore.

Philipp Erasmus Reich (1746–1787)

He headed the Weidmannsche Verlagbuchhandlung from 1746 to 1787, which under his aegis developed into one of the largest German original publishers in the second half of the 18th century. This important publisher of the Enlightenment is also considered the great reformer of the German book trade. Thus, under Reich, the book fair moved from Frankfurt to Leipzig. He was also the founder of the "Buchhandlungsgesellschaft", the preliminary stage to the later-founded stock exchange association of German booksellers . In his day he was referred to as the “Pope” of the North and Central German book trade, and today he is still considered the “first bookseller of the nation”, as Christoph Martin Wieland put it.

Marie Louise Weidmann and her successors Junius (1787–1822)

Due to the death of Reich, the aged Marie Louise Weidmann came into the sole possession of the company, which was now called "Weidmannsche Buchhandlung" again. The next 35 years are often referred to, if not quite rightly, as a "quiet" period in the company's history: only in the years when the Napoleonic wars paralyzed all trade, publishing activity was small, but it exceeded the number of the new publications in some years, both in the last decade of the 18th and in the first of the 19th century, thirty pieces. If you take into account the purchasing power of money at the time, you have to say that the Weidmannsche Buchhandlung was still an extremely valuable possession 35 years after Reich's death.

Georg Andreas Reimer (1822–1832)

His work, like that of Reich, went far beyond his own bookselling ventures. Almost all prominent representatives of intellectual Germany became its authors: the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel , Ludwig Tieck , Novalis , Heinrich von Kleist , Ernst Moritz Arndt , Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , the Brothers Grimm , Jean Paul , Wilhelm von Humboldt and others. a. In 1816, Georg Andreas Reimer acquired what would later become the President's Palace on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin ; he lived there with his family and ran the publishing house with his staff. The rooms were also used to present his collection of over two thousand paintings by great masters, including Altdorfer, Brueghel, Correggio, Cranach, Dürer, Van Dijk, CD Friedrich, Hals, Holbein the Elder. J., Murillo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo, Tizian and Watteaux.

Karl August Reimer (1830–1858) and Salomon Hirzel (1830–1852 / 1858)

As early as 1830, Georg Andreas Reimer entrusted his son Karl August and his son-in-law Salomon Hirzel with the Weidmannsche Verlag bookshop, which they ran for two decades in a harmonious collaboration. They were among the co-founders of the "Göttinger Verein", which supported the Göttingen Seven - the Georgia Augusta professors who had been driven out of office. Their cozy house became a meeting place for well-known authors, including Hermann Sauppe , Moriz Haupt , Otto Jahn , Adelbert von Chamisso , Gustav Schwab and Karl August Reimer's son-in-law, Theodor Mommsen . In 1854 Karl August Reimer moved to Berlin with the Weidmann publishing house.

Hans Reimer the Elder Ä. (1865-1887)

He was the scientific bookseller par excellence, and a good part of the fame of the Weidmann publishing house can be traced back to this outstanding publisher. He expanded the company through the successful school book publisher and founded scientific journals (such as the magazine for classical philology Hermes, the magazine for numismatics, the archive for Slavic philology) and series such as the " Philological Studies ", edited by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , who had joined Reimer's circle of relatives as Mommsen's son-in-law.

Paul Parey and Ernst Vollert (1888–1928)

In 1888 Paul Parey (who had just been elected first head of the Börsenverein) and Ernst Vollert took over the management of the Weidmann publishing house and continued the tried and tested scientific direction, for example with the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , with the takeover of the Göttingische Scholars advertisements and the Regesta Pontificum Romanorum . The Prussian Academy of Sciences entrusted Weidmann with the publishing supervision of the Codex Theodosianus , the German texts of the Middle Ages and Christoph Martin Wieland's collected writings. Vollert was awarded the silver Leibniz Medal by the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1922 .

Hans Reimer the Younger (1913–1951)

With him the era of the fourth generation of Reimer began. During his time, many scholars entrusted their works to the Weidmann publishing house ( Carl Robert , Hermann Diels , Friedrich Leo , Gustav Roethe , Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, etc.). Reimer also promoted other areas such as B. Sports science and radio technology .

Tom Hans Robert Reimer (1936–1983)

Hans Reimer the Elder J. left Weidmann to his son as the sole owner. With great tenacity the representative of the fifth generation Reimer gradually rebuilt the publishing house after the Second World War. An attempt by THR Reimers to re-establish the publishing house in Berlin after the departure of its managing director W. Joachim Freiburg failed. He moved the company's headquarters to Ireland with a branch in Zurich. After his tragic death in his estate on Mallorca, from where he had temporarily managed the publishing business, the widow Ilse Alix Reimer was able to entrust the publishing bookstore to the publisher W. Georg Olms as sole heir.

Walter Georg Olms (1983-)

W. Georg Olms took over the management of the Weidmann publishing house in 1983. He brought the publishing house back to Germany from Switzerland and Ireland, where he had been based for more than two decades. The traditional company is now developing new publishing activities from Hildesheim. The most important editions include the works of the Brothers Grimm and Pierre de Coubertin's Textes Choisis as well as the series Collectanea Grammatica Latina , Nikephoros - magazine for sport and culture in antiquity and Spolia Berolinensia - contributions to the intellectual and cultural history of the Middle Ages and modern times .