A History of the Frankfurt Book Fair by Peter Weidhaas

Author:Peter Weidhaas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459711372
Publisher: Dundurn

Ernst Rowohlt and Bundespresident Theodor Heuss (with cigar) enjoying the 1953 Book Fair.

Chapter 14

East-West Turmoil

From the outset, the relationship between Frankfurt and the Leipzig publishing houses in the Soviet Zone — the ones who had opted to remain in East Germany — had been fraught with difficulty. The new beginning in Frankfurt had been viewed with considerable hostility. In spite of this antipathy, however, twelve Leipzig publishers decided to participate in the original postwar Frankfurt Book Fair of 1949. The majority of these had registered only at the last minute, with the result that all available display space in St. Paul’s Church had been spoken for and it had been necessary for them to exhibit in the less convenient Platz der Republik space. Needless to say, this did not sit well with the visitors from the East.

Between 1952 and 1955, there were no further representations from East Germany, but in 1955 a total of forty-five publishers based in East Bloc countries — notably the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia — took the necessary steps to make their presence known in Frankfurt. An agreement was struck between the East and West Exchange Associations to allow the display of “specialized and scholarly books” under the designation “Books from Inter-Zone Dealers.”

In 1958 another agreement was reached whereby East German publishers would be allotted their own booths and their names were duly published in the Fair Catalogue, but an attempt to publicize the display using the designation “Books from the German Democratic Republic” was emphatically refused. Politically, the use of East Germany’s official state name — the GDR — was both premature and unacceptable to the West. On the other hand, after their return from Frankfurt in 1958, the East German publishing contingent were pleased to report that their participation had been a political and economic triumph and had netted a total of DM 400,000 in imports and exports as opposed to DM 11,000 the previous year. These figures were indisputable proof of their success. They would return.

Once again in 1959, the prickly question of official nomenclature was raised. A display contract was inadvertently approved by Sigfred Taubert for a Leipzig firm — German Book Export and Import Limited — to exhibit under the banner “Books from the German Democratic Republic.” This, in turn, provoked legal proceedings when the East German publishers demanded a court ruling that all their displays could therefore also be designated as “Books from the German Democratic Republic.” In their opinion, a precedent had been established. On October 8, 1959, the court in Frankfurt ruled that the Frankfurt Exchange Association did not have the authority to sanction this. For the duration of this Book Fair, the East German displays were to be designated “Books from the Internal German Book Trade.” The incident made it abundantly clear that unwelcome political hot potatoes would continue to fall into the lap of the Frankfurt Book Fair administration and, further, that it was ill-equipped to deal with such troublesome matters.

Since 1949, about 2.5

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.