Willi Vogel (Publishing Director)

Wilhelm Hans "Willi" Vogel (born December 11, 1910 in Fürth ; † February 4, 1989 in Ludwigsburg ) was a German politician (SPD) and publishing director.

Life

Vogel was a son of the SPD politician Hans Vogel . After obtaining his secondary school leaving certificate in 1925, he completed an apprenticeship as a printer at the Franconian publishing house in Nuremberg and at the Vorwärts printing company in Berlin until 1929 . He passed the assistant test in 1929. He then went on a hike.

From 1931 to 1933 Vogel worked in the Reichsdruckerei in Berlin and prepared for a career as an inspector.

According to his family origins, Vogel organized himself politically early on in the environment of the Social Democratic Party: from 1925 to 1928 he was a member of the SAJ (from 1927 to 1928 as a member of the district executive). Since 1925 he was also a member of the Association of German Book Printers (from 1925 to 1927 as a member of the board of the apprenticeship department in Nuremberg). In 1927 he finally joined the SPD, in which he became a member of the board of the Berlin-Friedrichshagen district in the same year.

After the National Socialists came to power in spring 1933, he worked illegally in the political underground from April to July 1933.

In June 1933 Vogel was dismissed from service in the Reichsdruckerei on suspicion of anti-state sentiments. After his parents' house was attacked and looted by members of the SA on June 21, 1933 , he hid for a few weeks with friends in Berlin and northern Germany. In the meantime, an arrest warrant was issued against him for alleged courier services for SOPADE .

On August 1, 1933 Bird went as a refugee to Prague to his parents and siblings. There he worked for the SOPADE publishing house.

In March 1934 Vogel went illegally to Berlin on behalf of the party executive of the SPD abroad, from where he moved via Danzig and Copenhagen to Stockholm in early 1935 , where he established himself with the help of the Matteotti Committee .

From 1935 to 1946 Vogel worked as a printer in Sweden . During these years from 1937 to 1939 he was together with Heinrich Bohnsack on behalf of ADG and Sopade editor of the magazine Rapporter från Tyskland (1st edition under the title Fackförings-Nyheter från Tyskland , published by Representation i Utlandet ADGB) with excerpts from SOPADE reports on Germany and the news service of the diplomatic mission of the German trade unions for the information of the Swedish press and trade unions (circulation 3000 to 5000 copies). Sales took place in cooperation with the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.

In Sweden, Vogel was also a member of the Swedish national group of the foreign representation of German trade unions. In 1937 he was briefly chairman of the SPD local group in Stockholm, but resigned in protest against contacts made by board member Simon Katzenstein on the Popular Front .

Meanwhile, in Germany, Vogel was classified as an enemy of the state: around 1937 he was officially expatriated and his expatriation was publicly announced in the Reichsanzeiger . The Reich Main Security Office , which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain , put him on the special wanted list GB in early 1940 , a list of people who, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, would locate subsequent SS special commands with special priority should be made and arrested.

In 1945 he took part in a course for school helpers of the Samarbets Committee for democratically uppbyggnadsarbete.

In November 1946, Vogel returned to Germany at Wilhelm Hoegner's request , where he worked until 1949 as technical and sales manager for the Mittelbayerische Zeitung in Regensburg .

From 1950 to 1962 Vogel was managing director and publishing director of the Allgemeine Zeitung für Württemberg and - at times parallel - from 1950 to 1973 of the Schwäbische Tagwacht GmbH in Stuttgart .

In 1951 Vogel was a co-founder and from 1951 to 1962 a member of the Baden-Württemberg newspaper publishers' association.

In Stuttgart, Vogel was a member of the city's SPD district advisory council from 1950 to 1974, having previously been a member of the SPD's board of directors in Regensburg from 1947 to 1949 .

family

Vogel married Hanne Jaksch (* 1901 in Pmeisl; 1969 in Stuttgart) in Stockholm in 1946, who had previously been married to Wenzel Jaksch .

literature

• Werner Röder / Herbert A. Strauss : Politics, Economy, Public Life , 1980, p. 784.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Hepp / Hans Georg Lehmann: The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger , 1985, p. 12.
2. ^ Entry on Vogel in the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .