Newspaper witnesses

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Newspaper witnesses is a printed collective edition that depicts the press landscape in Germany at the time of National Socialism . The core of each issue are thematically bundled reprints of two to four newspapers from the Nazi era. Soon after the publication of the first edition, public controversy and legal disputes broke out over the edition.

The issues appeared on Thursdays, the first on January 7, 2009, the last on December 16, 2010. The series was produced by the London publishing house Albertas Limited . Desire and goal of the British publisher and historian Peter McGee was that readers on the occasion of the commemorative year 2009 - 70 years outbreak of the Second World War , 60 years founding of the Federal Republic of Germany , 20 Years Fall of the Wall - a historically well-founded view of the media landscape 1933-1945 throw.

From January 12, 2012, a second edition with an expanded commentary and analysis section was published every Thursday. The majority of the included reprints, however, were similar to those of the first edition. However, there were no longer any large-format posters enclosed; instead, these were printed in a reduced format and discussed. The second edition was completed on February 28, 2013 after 60 editions.

Content and presentation

The initial circulation was 300,000 copies. Instead of the initially planned 51 editions, 96 finally appeared. Each edition consisted of the inner section, in which the historical newspaper pages were printed as a facsimile , and the outer jacket section, which contained the annotated classification of the material by historians in the historical context; a reprint of a poster or document was also enclosed.

Scientific advice
to newspaper witnesses
Wolfgang Benz
Peter Longerich
Horst Pöttker
Gerhard Botz
Hans Mommsen
Sönke Neitzel
Frank Bajohr
Barbara Distel
Dieter Pohl
Gabriele Toepser-Ziegert

Renowned historians and journalism researchers advised the editorial team scientifically. The editor-in-chief was Sandra Paweronschitz from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Science in Vienna . The publishing house already had editions in a similar form in Belgium and the Netherlands ("De Oorlogskranten", 1994/95), Denmark ("Krigsaviserne", 1998/99), Norway ("Krigsaviserne", 2000/01), Finland (" Sodan Lehdet ”, 2001/02), Greece (“ Πολεμικός Τύπος ”, 2003/04), Spain (“ Diarios de la Guerra ”, 2006/07) and Austria (“ NachRichten ”, 2008/09).

precursor

There was already a similar series in 1973 and 1974, which was distributed under the title Newspapers as Documents . Within this series there were 16 issues (15 consecutively numbered, one as a special edition for the soccer world championship 1974 ) from the period 1914 (outbreak of the First World War ) to 1954 ( soccer world championship in Switzerland ). The series was published by Orbis Verlag für Publizistik, Hamburg. The presentation is strikingly similar to that of newspaper witnesses . Here, too, a reprint of a historical newspaper was brought in in a coat. Originally the commentary was limited to four pages, but was expanded to eight pages from the 11th edition. The publication dealt primarily with topics from the time of National Socialism. In 1973, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance granted Orbis Verlag, part of the Bertelsmann Group, permission to reprint the Völkischer Beobachter . However, public interest in the series was low. After initial success, the circulation quickly fell and the sales price increased.

When the Munich Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) considered a complete digitization of the Völkischer Beobachter a few years ago in order to make the newspaper accessible to research, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance banned such publication. The Deputy Director of the IfZ, Udo Wengst , criticized the prevention of scientific editions by the Bavarian state government, but also the reprinting of Nazi newspapers for a wide audience: “And a Hitler poster as a supplement certainly does not serve - if the historical context is missing of the political enlightenment. ”The Bavarian objection also fell victim to scientifically commented editions of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf . Criticism of the government's attitude states that the book “enjoys the status of a 'forbidden book' in neo-Nazi circles” and “the inferiority of this book” at the same time “cannot be scientifically documented”.

criticism

At the start of the project, representatives of Jewish communities in Germany were moderately critical and raised concerns about both the published content and the way in which the material was presented, including the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , Charlotte Knobloch . The Central Council of Jews is now supporting legal action against newspaper witnesses, as it is feared that the newspaper will give a right-wing audience a new platform.

The editor-in-chief Sandra Paweronschitz rejected the criticism:

“But with the ban, the newspaper is put on the cloak of the dangerous and the evil and that is precisely what makes it attractive for the groups that we do not want to address. [...] I don't think that it was the intention of the Bavarian Ministry of Finance that we are sold out now. "

Copyright dispute

The Bavarian State Ministry of Finance prohibited the magazine from reprinting publications from the house of Franz-Eher-Verlag , whose assets and licensing rights were transferred to the Free State of Bavaria after the end of World War II and are now administered by its Ministry of Finance. The copies of the first edition, which has already been published, which contain material from the historical newspapers of Franz-Eher-Verlag, are to be confiscated at the Ministry's will. However, the effective transferability of copyrights is controversial. In a memorandum, eight of the ten scientific advisors on the project criticized the approach of the Bavarian authorities:

"Education about the crimes of National Socialism and the prerequisites for this movement is not possible without a thorough analysis of the original documents. [...] This [prohibition] is a most inept contribution to the mystification and exaggeration of Nazi propaganda. "

- Frank Bajohr, Wolfgang Benz, Gerhard Botz, Barbara Distel, Hans Mommsen, Sönke Neitzel, Horst Pöttker, Gabriele Toepser-Ziegert

After publication of the second edition, which reprints the Social Democratic forward , the liberal Vossische newspaper and the Nazi party organ Völkischer observers to Reichstagsbrand contains, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance announced criminal charges of "an investigation because of using symbols of unconstitutional organizations" would be launched. Civil law proceedings are also taken against the McGees publishing house in order to “prevent future reprints of the Nazi propaganda press”. McGee, on the other hand, considers it “completely unclear whether the Free State ever granted the exclusive copyright rights of use to the Nazi papers 'Attack' or the 'Völkischer Beobachter'”.

The starting point of civil law for the Free State of Bavaria could have been the legal succession vis-à-vis Hitler or Eher-Verlag (in its own rights or rights derived from publishers or authors). However, claims for injunctive relief by the Free State of Bavaria were largely denied by the courts:

  • Those named as the publisher (in particular Hitler) did not perform the editorial work themselves and thus did not acquire the copyright of the collective work ( LUG § 4 sentence 1). The same applies to the editors; furthermore, they are not expressly named as editors. After all, it cannot be proven that these persons have transferred or granted rights to Eher-Verlag.
  • Eher-Verlag's own collective copyrights (LUG § 4 sentence 2) as a legal person expired 70 years after publication (LUG § 32 in conjunction with UrhG § 132 sentence 2).
  • Insofar as the individual contributions were published anonymously, the copyrights have also expired 70 years after publication ( UrhG § 66 para. 1 in conjunction with § 129 para. 1). In addition, it cannot be assumed that the authors of articles identified by name have transferred long-term exclusive rights to Eher-Verlag in deviation from VerlG § 42 Paragraph 2 Clause 2 old version (today UrhG § 38 Paragraph 3).

However, if not 70 years have passed since publication, the right to quote (UrhG § 51) does not justify “bringing a collective work to the general public in its entirety, without a sufficient scientific discussion of the collective work as such”. In this respect, the opinion of the Free State of Bavaria was confirmed.

In the newspaper witness editions of January 2010, newspapers from 1939 were initially reprinted, for which the copyrights have also expired since January 1, 2010. The other editions, with which, according to the publisher, “the end of the Second World War and the end of National Socialism” should be achieved, no longer contain newspapers that were published by publishers of the NSDAP.

Criminal procedural seizure

By order of the Munich District Court , the facsimiles of the Völkischer Beobachter and the Nazi propaganda poster “The Reichstag in Flames” enclosed with the second edition of the booklet were confiscated . The Bavarian Minister of Justice Beate Merk justified the procedure with the words: “The spread of National Socialist propaganda is accepted here with approval. The inserts can easily be removed from the newspaper jacket. They are loose. They can be taken out of context and abused by neo-Nazis ”. This is not necessary for a scientific discussion. She turned to the publisher's address with the following words: “Anyone who decides on such a publication despite an express ban by the Bavarian state government shows that they lack the necessary sensitivity in dealing with history and law. This very conscious provocation makes it inevitable to have to intervene in such a high good as freedom of the press . ”On April 20, 2009, the 2nd criminal division of the Munich Regional Court decided that neither the facsimile reprints of National Socialist newspapers nor the poster violated Section 86a of the Criminal Code (StGb), since the magazine clearly serves to educate citizens. Although there is a certain risk "to expect that the average educated and historically interested citizen will continue to educate himself in the necessary distance and understand the context through the publication". The overall concept of the project would "give an authentic picture of the past and thus present the press in the time of National Socialism as realistically as possible".

Web links

Internet presence

items

Videos

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Florian Merkel: Goebbels writes on the front page. In: Berliner Zeitung . January 10, 2009, accessed September 4, 2015 .
  2. ^ The West on January 4, 2012: Nazi history edition "Newspaper witnesses" returns to the kiosks. Retrieved January 22, 2012 .
  3. ↑ See The Team Behind Newspaper Witnesses ( Memento January 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). On: zeitungszeugen.de (last accessed on January 29, 2009)
  4. ↑ Read history: 'Zeitungszeugen' 1933–1945 ( Memento from January 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). On: presseportal.de , January 7, 2009
  5. ↑ http://www.oorlogskranten.nl/
  6. ↑ Ο Τύπος της Κατοχής: 1940 - 1944 ( Memento from March 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ See Verena Bruha: Eye witness in retrospect (PDF; 1.2 MB). Master's thesis, Vienna 2009
  8. ↑ See catalog of the German National Library
  9. ↑ Markus Brauck, Martin U. Müller, Conny Neumann: Poison in the envelope. In: Der Spiegel No. 6, February 2, 2009, p. 94f
  10. ^ A b c Sebastian Fischer: "Newspaper witnesses". Bavaria files a criminal complaint for reprinting Nazi newspapers . In: Spiegel Online, January 22, 2009
  11. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Nazi newspapers. Third edition of "Newspaper Witness" is censored . In: Welt Online , January 29, 2009
  12. ^ Statement by Charlotte Knobloch ( memento of April 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on zeitungszeugen.de .
  13. ↑ See German history. “Newspaper witnesses” give an insight into the Nazi era . On: faz.de , January 13, 2009
  14. ↑ Press release: Central Council supports legal steps against the "Newspaper witnesses" project. No copy templates for young Nazis at the newspaper kiosk . On: Zentralratdjuden.de , January 22, 2009
  15. ↑ Newspaper witness editor-in-chief: "We don't give in". Interview by Marie Preuss . On: Zoomer.de , January 21, 2009
  16. ↑ Christoph Cadenbach / Sebastian Fischer / Hans Michael Kloth / Severin Weiland: 'Newspaper witnesses' project: Bavaria forbids reprinting of Nazi newspapers . In: Spiegel-Online, January 16, 2009. See the section on the legal situation in the article Mein Kampf
  17. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Memorandum of the scientific advisory board on zeitzeugen.de , January 20, 2009. See German historians against reprinting ban on Nazi newspapers . On: derStandard.at , January 20, 2009. Peter Longerich and Dieter Pohl did not sign the memorandum@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.zeitungszeugen.de
  18. ^ "Newspaper witnesses". Court has reprinted Nazi newspaper confiscated . In: Spiegel Online, January 23, 2009
  19. ↑ See Law No. 20 for the Liberation from Nationalism and Militarism of March 5, 1946 (Bay.GVBl p. 145), Art. 37; Decision of the Munich Spruchkammer on October 15, 1948; Confiscation Ordinance of 23 November 1948 (Bay.GVBl p. 268), §§ 3, 9
  20. ↑ See Control Council Directive No. 50 of April 29, 1947 (OJ CR p. 275), Art. Ⅰ ( Memento of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Ⅴ No. 1 ( Memento of July 14, 2014 in Internet Archive ) i. V. m. Control Council Act No. 2 of October 10, 1945 (OJ CR p. 19), Art. Ⅰ No. 2 ( Memento of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Appendix No. 12 ( Memento of July 14, 2014 in Internet Archive )
  21. ↑ Regional Court of Munich Ⅰ, judgment of March 25, 2009 , Archive for Press Law 2009, 179–183; Higher Regional Court Munich, judgment of October 1, 2009 , OLG Report Munich 2009, 866–869
  22. ↑ Regional Court of Munich Ⅰ, judgment of March 25, 2009 under I.3.b.
  23. ↑ Press release of the Munich Regional Court Ⅰ from March 25, 2009; Thomas Werz: Magazine allowed to print Nazi writings , in: Schwäbische Zeitung, March 26, 2009
  24. ^ Cover letter from Albertas-Verlag from January 19, 2010 to subscribers
  25. ↑ "Newspaper witnesses." The court has reprinted Nazi newspapers confiscated . In: Spiegel Online, January 23, 2009
  26. ^ Telepolis.de: Newspaper witness confiscation order was illegal . April 21, 2009
  27. ↑ Regional Court of Munich Ⅰ, decision of April 17, 2009 , Archive for Press Law 2009, 279–282