Berliner Tageblatt
Encyclopedia
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
published in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
from 1872-1939. Along with the Frankfurter Zeitung
Frankfurter Zeitung
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
, it became one of the most important liberal German newspapers of its time.
History
The Berliner Tageblatt was first published by Rudolf MosseRudolf Mosse
Rudolf Mosse was a German publisher and philanthropist.-Biography:Mosse was born in Grätz, Grand Duchy of Posen, as the son of Dr. Markus Moses, a noted physician...
as an advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
paper on January 1, 1872, but developed into a liberal newspaper. On January 5, 1919, the office of the newspaper was briefly occupied by Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
soldiers in the German Revolution
German Revolution
The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...
. By 1920, the BT had achieved a daily circulation
Newspaper circulation
A newspaper's circulation is the number of copies it distributes on an average day. Circulation is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulation, since some newspapers are distributed without cost to the...
of about 245,000.
Prior to the Nazis taking power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
on January 30, 1933, the newspaper was particularly critical and hostile to their program. On March 3, 1933, after the Reichstag fire
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
, Hans Lachmann-Mosse, the publisher, dismissed editor in chief Theodor Wolff because of his criticism of the Nazi government and his Jewish ancestry. Wolff by then fled to the Tyrol in Austria by plane.
After 1933, the Nazi government took control of the newspaper (the Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
). However, in September 1933, special permission was granted by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
to release the paper from any obligation to reprint Nazi propaganda
Nazi propaganda
Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
in order to help portray an image of a free German press internationally. Due to this assurance, their respected foreign correspondent Paul Scheffer became editor on April 1, 1934. He had been the first foreign journalist to be refused a re-entry permit into the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1929 for his negative reporting of the Five-Year Plan and prophesy of an impending famine in Ukraine.
For almost two years, Scheffer surrounded himself by independently-minded university graduates such as Margaret Boveri. She wrote in 1960 that Scheffer "was hated from the beginning by leading people of the Propaganda Ministry, and it was only because of his excellent foreign connections that he was not relieved of his position in the early years of the regime." Scheffer's position eventually became untenable and he resigned on December 31, 1936.
The paper was finally shut down by the Nazi authorities on January 31, 1939. The name has been revivied in 2007 as a second name for the online newspaper
Online newspaper
An online newspaper, also known as a web newspaper, is a newspaper that exists on the World Wide Web or Internet, either separately or as an online version of a printed periodical....
Berliner Tageszeitung.
Contributors
During the 27 years (1906–1933) when Theodor Wolff was editor in chief, the BT became the most influential newspaper in Berlin. Wolff brought the elite of German journalismJournalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
to the Berliner Tageblatt. Ernst Feder and Rudolf Olden
Rudolf Olden
Rudolf Olden was a German lawyer and journalist. In the Weimar-period he was a well known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of human rights and one of the first to alert the world to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in 1934. He is the author of...
ran the domestic politics section, while Josef Schwab, Max Jordan
Max Jordan
Max Jordan was a pioneering radio journalist for the NBC network in Europe in the 1930s. He later became a Benedictine monk.He was born around 1895 in Europe. He got a PhD in Religious Philosophy...
, and Maximilian Müller-Jabusch handled foreign politics. Arthur Norden and Felix Pinner were responsible for the business section. Fred Hildebrandt headed the feuilleton
Feuilleton
Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles...
section from 1922-1932. Regular contributors to the feuilleton included Alfred Polgar
Alfred Polgar
Alfred Polgar was an Austrian-born journalist, one of the renowned wits of the Vienna coffeehouses. He left Austria in 1938, and later worked in Hollywood.He was known as a drama critic, in Berlin 1925 to 1933, and an essayist...
, Fritz Mauthner
Fritz Mauthner
Fritz Mauthner was a journalist and philosopher from Horschitz, Bohemia.He became editor of the Berliner Tageblatts in 1895, but is best known for his Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache , published in three parts in 1901 and 1902...
, Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...
, Erich Kästner
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
, Otto Flake, and Frank Thiess
Frank Thiess
Frank Thiess was a German writer.-Biography:Born in Eluisenstein, Russian Livonia , Thiess grew up in Berlin, where his family moved after Russia had annexed Livonia. He worked as a journalist for four years until he was enlisted into the German army in World War I...
. The chief of the theatre section was Alfred Kerr
Alfred Kerr
Alfred Kerr , born Alfred Kempner, was an influential German-Jewish theatre critic and essayist, nicknamed the Kulturpapst ....
.
From 1918 until April 1920, Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...
contributed 50 articles fo the Berliner Tageblatt while he was also editor in chief of the satirical magazine Ulk
Ulk
The German satirical magazine Ulk was printed from 1872 until 1933 by the publisher Rudolf Mosse.Initially it was an independent weekly paper as Wochenblatt für Humor und Satire...
, which appeared weekly between 1913 and 1933. His novel Schloss Gripsholm (based on Gripsholm Castle
Gripsholm Castle
Gripsholm Castle is a castle in Mariefred, Södermanland, in Sweden and is regarded as one of Sweden's finest historical monuments. It is located by lake Mälaren in south central Sweden, in the municipality of Strängnäs, about 60 km west of Stockholm....
) appeared in the BT from March 20 to April 26, 1931. Alfred Eisenstaedt
Alfred Eisenstaedt
Alfred Eisenstaedt was a German-American photographer and photojournalist. He is renowned for his candid photographs, frequently made using various models of a 35mm Leica rangefinder camera...
was one of the newspaper's photographers.
Erich Everth
Erich Everth
Erich Everth was a German art historian, journalist and scientist of newspaper and cultivation. He was the first ordinary professor for Journalism in Germany and directed from 1926 to 1933 the Institute for Journalism at the University of Leipzig...
began corresponding from the BT from Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1924. As the successor of Leopold Schmidt, Alfred Einstein was the musical critic from September 1927 until August 1933. The head of the important Central European Office from 1927-1933 was Heinrich Eduard Jacob
Heinrich Eduard Jacob
Heinrich Eduard Jacob was a German and American journalist and author. Born to a Jewish family in Berlin and raised partly in Vienna, Jacob worked for two decades as a journalist and biographer before the rise to power of the Nazi Party...
, based out of Vienna. During his time at the BT, Jacob had approximately 1,000 contributions. Because he was an opponent of the Austrian Nazis, Jacob was imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp after the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in 1938.
The BT published separate weekly magazines, distributed as part of the newspaper. A number of these, such as "Technische Rundschau," a weekly review of trends in technology, and the "Haus, Hof und Garten" sections (Home and Garden), were edited by Rudolf Jonas. Jonas was an editor from 1929 to 1932. Jonas later became an editor of the magazine Das Theater.
Circulation
| Year | Circulation - Weekdays | Circulation - Sunday |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | 245,000 | 245,000 |
| Mar 1919 | 160,000-170,000 | 300,000 |
| 1920 | 245,000 | 300,000 |
| 1923 | ~250,000 | |
| Apr 1928 | 150,000 | 150,000 |
| 1929 | 137,000 (Berlin: 83,000) | 250,000 |
| 1930–1931 | 121,000 (Berlin: 77,000) | 208,000 (Berlin: 113,000) |
| Apr 1931 | 140,000 | 140,000 |
| 1933 | 130,000-240,000 | 130,000-240,000 |