Wiesbaden newspaper

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The Wiesbadener Zeitung was a daily newspaper published in Wiesbaden until 1943 .

The Wiesbadener Zeitung traced its history back to the "Freie Zeitung" founded in Wiesbaden during the German Revolution . It was published for the first time on March 3, 1848. Its initially radical revolutionary orientation faded after a few weeks. Around 2300 subscribers are named for July 1, 1848, but they must have decreased significantly shortly afterwards. After several personnel changes, Julius Oppermann became editor of the Freie Zeitung in August 1848 and left on July 20, 1850 for health reasons. He was succeeded by Dr. Bölsch, later Max Wirth.

On December 15, 1851, the paper was renamed Mittelrheinische Zeitung , probably in order not to give it a revolutionary impression in the era of reaction . An edition of 1,100 copies has been handed down for 1857. In 1855 the goldsmith and emigration agent Franz Reisinger became the owner of the sheet. His wife had bought it shortly before they were married. Reisinger led the newspaper on a decidedly pro-government course. Shortly after the takeover by the new publisher, Wirth resigned as editor-in-chief and was replaced by Christoph Hoeppel. Despite its proximity to government positions, the Mittelrheinische Zeitung was banned for two months on February 3, 1865, after several warnings.

In the months that followed, the Nassau Progressive Party gained increasing influence over the newspaper with its small German program. Karl Braun in particular used the paper as a mouthpiece. This led to the departure of the long-standing, Greater German- employed editor Carl Becker, who founded a short-lived competing product under the title Neue Mittelrheinische Zeitung . His successor and later editor-in-chief was Wolfgang Eras .

After Nassau was annexed by Prussia in 1866, the Mittelrheinische Zeitung was published by Carl Ritter Verlag. Gustav von Diest , the Prussian civil commissioner and later district president in Wiesbaden, preferred to provide the newspaper with information from the administration in the following months because of its Prussian-friendly attitude. In February 1867, however, there was a break between von Diest and the editorial team. The reason was the oppositional stance that the progressive division and thus also the newspaper took on the question of the replacement of feudal hunting rights. They resolutely opposed the ideas of the government, which only wanted to implement this in exchange for compensation payments to the state treasury, and thus prevailed in the course of 1867. Even during this dispute, von Diest issued a written warning to the editor responsible for reporting on a local political dispute in Lenzhahn .

In 1874, the publisher Ritter took over the politically conservative Rheinischer Kurier , first published in Wiesbaden on November 20, 1866 , which from 1867 had become the preferred semi-official newspaper under the influence of Diests and the support provided by the Prussian state, and closed it with the Mittelrheinische Zeitung together. On July 1, 1874, the first joint edition appeared under the title Rheinischen Kurier and the subtitle Mittelrheinische Zeitung . The newspaper adopted a liberal program with the express aim of mediating between the various liberal currents. The publishers later switched from Ritter to their own publishing company. In 1906 the name Wiesbadener Zeitung appeared again as a second subtitle. On April 1, 1908, the sheet was completely renamed to this title.

On August 1, 1912, the entrepreneur Eduard Bartling acquired the Wiesbadener Zeitung through his Wiesbaden publishing house. At this point in time, the company had already acquired the Wiesbadener Generalanzeiger , founded in 1885 . It was a paper geared towards entertainment and local news without a political profile, which had numerous readers, especially in the outskirts of the city. Since 1894 the Generalanzeiger was used by the Wiesbaden city administration as an official communication organ. In 1922 Bartling renamed the Generalanzeiger to Wiesbadener Latest News .

In 1923 the merger with the Wiesbadener Zeitung to form the Neue Wiesbadener Zeitung followed . This paper saw itself as bourgeois and was critical of Rhenish separatism and the Allied occupation . In the spring of 1923 the Neue Wiesbadener Zeitung was therefore banned several times for a few days. The editor-in-chief was Bernhard Grothus. At that time, the editorial office and printer were on Nikolasstrasse (today Bahnhofstrasse). From 1925 at the latest, the title was part of Wolfgang Huck's publishing group . In 1930 the name was changed to Wiesbadener Zeitung . Gustav Geissel later became the owner.

On April 30, 1936, it was sold to the Nassauer Volksblatt publishing house , the NSDAP party newspaper for the Hessen-Nassau Gau , and the Wiesbadener Zeitung was therefore discontinued. The Reich Press Chamber officially justified this with an alleged oversupply of newspapers in Wiesbaden.

From July 1, 1943, the name "Wiesbadener Zeitung" was used again. It was the merger of the Nassauer Volksbaltt with the Wiesbadener Tagblatt , the oldest newspaper in the city. The Schellenberg family, who had published the daily newspaper for generations, apparently remained involved in the publishing house. The last edition of the Wiesbadener Zeitung appeared on March 26, 1945.

literature

  • Wolf-Arno Kropat : Authoritative Ice State and Freedom of the Press . In: Nassauische Annalen , 77th Volume, 1966. pp. 233-288.
  • Herbert Müller-Werth : On the history of the Wiesbaden press since the Weimar period . In: Nassauische Annalen , 84th Volume, 1973. pp. 224-228.
  • B. Stein: The history of the Wiesbaden newspaper industry from its beginnings to the present. Typescript [without place and year, probably Wiesbaden 1943], found in March 2002 in the Wiesbadener Tagblatt archive (as a carbon copy). Download PDF