Wilhelm Limpert

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Wilhelm Limpert (born October 20, 1891 in Würzburg , † January 28, 1959 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German printer and publisher . In 1921 he founded in Dresden to Limpert Verlag , a publishing house for sports.

Life

General view of the Wilhelm Limpert publishing house - Wilhelm Limpert Verlag Dresden-A.1, Marienstr. 16 (advertising brochure 1928)

Born in Franconia, Wilhelm Limpert learned two professions: printer and bookseller . During the First World War he was stationed as a soldier on the Western Front .

In 1921, at the age of thirty, Limpert founded the Limpert publishing house of the same name and printing company in Dresden . The active gymnast chose his hobby, sport , as the focus of the program . The company's economic development benefited from the mass media staging of sporting events as well as from the increasing demand for guides and specialist literature on sports training and competitions. Already in these early years one focus was on sports books for sports mediators in schools and clubs. Limpert's close contacts with various gymnastics and sports associations soon enabled the Deutsche Turnerzeitung and other periodicals to be published. Wilhelm Limpert was already close to völkisch-nationalist currents at this time ; This is evidenced by publications such as The Turnsache of German Abroad in the Light of a Greater German Cultural Community (1928) or the reprint of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's work Deutsches Volksthum .

The publishing program was continuously expanded in the 1930s and early 1940s and concentrated on popular topics: non-fiction books on choral singing, animal welfare and technology, including scientific titles such as Chemistry Conquers the World or biographies about Justus von Liebig and Hugo Junkers (all 1940). In the field of fiction , the novels of the National Socialist writer Otto Paust were found . Under the non-fiction book titles, too, decidedly militaristic and anti-Semitic content was disseminated in line with the National Socialist worldview . For the Limpert printing company, advertising was an important additional business to the publisher's own publications.

The expansion of the program went hand in hand with the opening of a second printing and publishing location. In 1934 Limpert founded the Limpert printing company in Berlin, based in Berlin-Kreuzberg at Ritterstrasse 75. Before the start of the Second World War, Limpert Verlag employed a total of around 1,500 people at both locations.

A few months before the end of the war, both publishing houses were completely destroyed by bombing: the Berlin publishing house at Ritterstraße 75 and the alternative property at Ritterstraße 45 on February 3, 1945 and the Dresden house 10 days later, on February 13, 1945 . Books and paper supplies fell victim to the flames in Berlin and Dresden. Until 1950 Limpert stayed with the remainder of his Berlin publishing house in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Ritterstraße 128.

Wilhelm Limpert moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1950. In the beginning he did all the correspondence for the publisher himself. The first publications after the war included the 13th new edition of the title Gymnastik: Körpererschule ohne Apparatus and the first volume in the series of the German Gymnastics Federation (both 1950). At the end of the 1950s, his company had more than 30 employees again. In 1958 the publisher's directory showed around 270 titles.

In the same year Limpert suffered a heart attack that left him bedridden for a long time. At Christmas 1958 he got a kidney infection from which he did not recover.

family

On May 20, 1938, Wilhelm Limpert married a young employee of his publishing house in Berlin, the 25-year-old Erika Jänichen from Dresden. The couple lived in Berlin. The five children were born there, two of whom died in childhood. After the marriage, Erika Limpert completed an apprenticeship as a publishing bookseller. After the end of the war, first Wilhelm, then Erika with children, moved to Frankfurt, where Erika Limpert was chairwoman and manager of the Frankfurt Artists' Club for many years . She died on July 9, 1995.

literature

  • Dorp, Peter (ed.): The diaries of the publisher Curt Cowall. 1940-1945. From Hitler in Paris to the Battle of Berlin. Berlin Story Verlag, 2020. 295 pages ISBN 978-3-95723-170-3
  • Geßmann, Rolf: 'Every gymnastics and sports book only from Limpert'. On the history of the Limpert publishing house 1921–1945 . epubli, 2020. 96 pages. ISBN 978-3-7529-6584-1
  • Klippel, Hermann: The publisher Wilhelm Limpert . In the S. (Red.): Limpert Verlag 1921–1996. 75 years of literature for the most important minor matter in the world. An almanac . Wiesbaden 1996: Limpert, ISBN 3-7853-1594-5 , pp. 9-18.
  • Fiedler, Uwe: Friedrich Kurt Fiedler . without location 2011 ( PDF ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Books of Exercise. Wilhelm Limpert Dresden-A.1. 17th edition 1928. 80 pages
  2. ↑ See Hermann Klippel: The publisher Wilhelm Limpert . In the S. (Red.): Limpert Verlag 1921–1996. 75 years of literature for the most important minor matter in the world. An almanac . Wiesbaden 1996: Limpert, ISBN 3-7853-1594-5 , p. 10.
  3. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger , p. 11.
  4. ↑ See German National Library data set http://d-nb.info/577965840 .
  5. ↑ See German National Library data set http://d-nb.info/580266982 .
  6. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger , pp. 12f., German National Library Datasets http://d-nb.info/575355875 ; http://d-nb.info/574215425 ; http://d-nb.info/575355816 .
  7. ↑ See German National Library Datasets http://d-nb.info/580368777 ; http://d-nb.info/573159955 ; http://d-nb.info/573134960 ; http://d-nb.info/571675026 ; http://d-nb.info/572471041 ; http://d-nb.info/574496173 .
  8. ↑ See Uwe Fiedler, Kurt Fiedler , p. 15.
  9. ↑ See the economic advertising publisher Curt Cowall and the Wilhelm Limpert Druckerei-Verlag. In: The Diaries of Publisher Curt Cowall. 1940-1945. Pp. 35-39.
  10. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger , p. 13.
  11. ^ See the diaries of the publisher Curt Cowall. 1940-1945. P. 151.
  12. ↑ See German National Library Datasets http://d-nb.info/451325451 ; http://d-nb.info/455130671 .
  13. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger , pp. 16 and 18.
  14. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger , p. 18.
  15. ↑ See Klippel, Der Verleger, p. 15.
personal data
SURNAME Limpert, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and printer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1959
Place of death Frankfurt am Main