Wilhelm Goldmann

This article deals with the German publisher; for the Hessian member of the state parliament of the same name see Wilhelm Goldmann (politician) .

Wilhelm Goldmann (born February 25, 1897 in Baumgarten , Upper Silesia , † April 24, 1974 in Wollerau , Canton Schwyz ) was a German publisher .

Childhood, Education and World War I

Goldmann was born in 1897 in the Upper Silesian village of Baumgarten (today Sady ) in a sheepfold of a manor that had been converted into a school with a teacher's apartment as the son of a village school teacher. The family descended from an ancestral line of Upper Silesian farmers that can be traced back to the 17th century in the village of Schloss Goldmannsdorf (today Bzie Zameckie ). His parents were newly married. A year later, the father became the main teacher and cantor in the Protestant church in the village of Kirchberg (now Tłustoręby ), 15 kilometers away , where the family moved. Another four years later, the father was transferred to the city of Brzeg (now Brzeg ), 35 kilometers away , which resulted in the family moving again. Wilhelm Goldmann went to the public school and high school in Brieg.

Goldmann completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in the Hugo Süßmann bookstore in Brzeg . Goldmann then worked for four to five months in the Dresden court bookstore H. Burdach. In 1917 he was called up for military service in Dresden during the First World War . During the war he witnessed the establishment of the anti-aircraft search team . After the end of the war, he resumed his work at H. Burdach in 1919. In autumn 1919 Wilhelm Goldmann accepted a position as private secretary for Hofrat Walther Keller at Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung in Stuttgart. Here he made the decision to become a publisher himself. To prepare for this, Goldmann wanted to get to know as many bookstores as possible. That is why he became a travel agent in Franckh's publishing house . In the spring of 1921 Goldmann took over the foreign representation of over 25 publishing houses. He became one of the first German sales representatives in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark and Sweden after the First World War.

Haus Kohlgartenstrasse 20 in 2015. Wilhelm Goldmann's publishing house from 1922 to 1940

Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Leipzig

Dust jacket Edgar Wallace Der Zinker , published in 1930 by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag

Despite the post-war inflation , Goldmann founded Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in 1922 with its headquarters at Kohlgartenstrasse 20 in Leipzig . The entry in the commercial register took place on June 21, 1922. The publisher initially published art volumes, woodcut portfolios and the like. In the spring of 1924, Emil Droonberg's Das Gold der Nebelberge was published, the first novel by Goldmanns Verlag. According to Goldmann, he invented the blind cardboard box, a soft cardboard envelope without any imprint. The book was given a paper dust jacket and cost only 3 marks. The great success of the publishing house began at the end of 1925 with the books by Edgar Wallace, who was previously unknown in Germany . The first Wallace book published by Goldmann was the novel 15 Years With the Cannibals in Central Africa , translated by Richard Küas, a former district administrator in the German colony of Togo. The first detective novel by Edgar Wallace published by Goldmann was Die Gang des Schreckens in 1926 . The book was published in advance in the Münchner Illustrierte Presse . In the same year Goldmann published Wallace's Der Rote Kreis , which was made into a film by Friedrich Zelnik in 1928 and appeared in 1929. Goldmann was present during the shooting. In 1927, Edgar Wallace's The Witcher was published by Goldmann. Max Reinhardt brought the crime thriller to the Berlin Deutsches Theater . At the premiere, Goldmann sat next to the theater critic Alfred Kerr , who praised the play. In 1928 Goldmann acquired the rights to all crime novels by Edgar Wallace.

House Roßplatz 1 in Leipzig in 1900. From 1941 until its destruction in 1943 Wilhelm Goldmann's publishing house

Second World War

Already ten days before the outbreak of the Second World War , Wilhelm Goldmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht on August 10, 1939, at the age of 42. From August 17, 1939, he was in use on a flak searchlight on the Siegfried Line . After a second complaint, he was able to return to Leipzig, as his work as a publishing director was viewed as vital to the war effort. Goldmann now also published special editions for troop support . From 1941 the publishing house was located in Roßplatz 1 in Leipzig. On December 4, 1943, starting at 4:00 a.m., the Leipzig booksellers' quarter was completely destroyed by a two-hour air bomb attack. Wilhelm Goldmann's publishing house at Roßplatz 1 was one of the destroyed buildings. Despite the total loss, Goldmann continued publishing activities in his private home in Lützschena - Hänichen near Leipzig. In the summer of 1944 Wilhelm Goldmann was called up again for military service. He served in a motor vehicle department. Upon request, he was transferred from Dresden to Leipzig on February 10, 1944, three days before the complete destruction of downtown Dresden by an aerial bomb attack . According to his own statements, Wilhelm Goldmann was arrested by the Gestapo on February 12, 1944 after being denounced for political statements . When he was transferred to Czechoslovakia on the retreat from the Allied troops, Goldmann managed to escape on May 5, 1945 in Kaaden (now Kadaň ). On his way to Leipzig on foot, he was picked up by Allied troops and interned in the American POW camp at the Eger airfield (today Cheb ). Goldmann was soon released and was back with his family in Hänichen on June 2, 1945.

Soviet detention

Since it was difficult to continue the publishing house after the end of the Second World War, Goldmann first founded a nursery in Leipzig. On February 1, 1946, he was arrested by the NKVD on the way to his makeshift office on Eisenbahnstrasse . The director of a printing company is said to have denounced him for having published fascist books during the Nazi era. Wilhelm Goldmann remained imprisoned without trial or judgment, without knowing how long the imprisonment would last. He was first imprisoned in special camp No. 1 Mühlberg and later in special camp No. 2 Buchenwald . He was released on January 16, 1950. During his absence, his authorized signatory Albert Krug had temporarily continued to run the company as a mail order bookstore, but on December 31, 1949 applied for the company to be deleted.

Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Munich

Wilhelm Goldmann left Leipzig and the newly founded GDR and flew on February 8, 1950 from Berlin to Munich in the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany . There his wife had prepared the rebuilding of Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag. On January 24, 1950, Goldmann's paperbacks were announced in Munich . On July 4, 1950, Wilhelm Goldmann reported back to the book industry via an advertisement in the Börsenblatt des Deutschen Buchhandels . In the same month, the first six Goldmann books appeared in Munich, followed by another six in August. They were books by Edgar Wallace and other crime novels. Due to a lack of capital, the paperbacks did not appear until 1952 and therefore only after the paperbacks by Rowohlt and Fischer . The first volume to appear at a retail price of 2.20 marks was The Frog with the Mask by Edgar Wallace (Goldmanns Taschen-Krimi, Volume 1). In 1953, the Goldmann Yellow Series started with paperback editions of classics and general fiction. Other series were added later, such as science fiction and art books. At the beginning of 1958, the construction of a new publishing house on Neumarkter Strasse began. The last phase of construction was completed in spring 1962.

In 1963 Wilhelm Goldmann converted his publishing house into a stock corporation and in 1966 into a limited liability company . In 1970, Goldmann paperback books were published with a total circulation of over 100 million books. Of 2665 titles appeared in the Yellow Series 1373, the Weltraum 112 series, the Adventure 32 series and the Krimi 1148 series.

Three years after the publisher's death, Bertelsmann bought Goldmann-Verlag in 1977, and with this step entered the growing paperback business.

Goldmann was a member of the board of directors of the collecting society Wort . He was married three times and spent his final years in Switzerland .

Awards

• 1962: Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• July 3, 1973: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

literature

• Wilhelm Goldmann: Brief history of the Wilhelm Goldmann publishing house . In: Lexicon of the Goldmann paperbacks . tape 1000 . Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1963, p. 5-22 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Goldmann 1963
2. ^ Leipzig address book . 1928, p. 285 ( slub-dresden.de ).
3. ^ Leipzig address book . 1941, p. 261 ( slub-dresden.de ).
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Wilhelm Goldmann , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 39/1974 of September 16, 1974, in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on January 20, 2015 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
5. ↑ Publishing history. In: randomhouse.de. Retrieved January 24, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Achim Kilian: To be instructed for complete isolation: NKVD special camp Mühlberg, Elbe, 1945 - 1948 . Forum Verlag, Leipzig 1992, ISBN 3-86151-028-6 , p. 170 .
7. ^ Waldemar Zylla: Goldmann, Wilhelm. In: kulturportal-west-ost.eu. Retrieved January 24, 2020 . 
8. ^ Thomas Lehning: The media house: past and present of the Bertelsmann group . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7705-4035-2 , p. 95 .