The Book by Suarez Michael F. Woudhuysen H. R. & H. R. Woudhuysen

Author:Suarez, Michael F., Woudhuysen, H. R. & H. R. Woudhuysen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2013-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

8 The 20th century

Throughout the 19th century Leipzig publishers led the field in Germany, though the quality of their typography, paper, illustrations, and binding was often far from outstanding. The turn of the century, however, saw growing interest in book design based on the traditions of earlier periods. William Morris’s Arts and Crafts movement resonated in Germany, where like-minded people tried to link new artistic forms with an appreciation of materials and craftsmanship to create a harmonious combination of type, paper, illustration, and binding. Notable examples of this trend were the magazines Pan and Jugend (from which the term Jugendstil derives). A number of private presses on the English model were founded, such as Carl Ernst Poeschel’s and Walther Tiemann’s Janus-Presse (1907); the Bremer Presse (1911), influenced by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson; and the Cranach-Presse, established by Harry Graf Kessler who emulated the Kelmscott and the Doves presses. After about 1910, the decorative, flowing forms of Jugendstil increasingly contrasted with the hard, broken forms of Expressionism—among whose exponents as book illustrators were Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann, Ernst Barlach, and Alfred Kubin. The growing number of design-conscious mainstream publishers included Anton Kippenberg of the Insel-Verlag in Leipzig, Eugen Diederichs at Düsseldorf, and Hans von Weber, who founded his Hyperion-Verlag in Munich in 1906.

The momentous political events that overwhelmed Germany in the 20th century inevitably affected the book trade. In 1922–3 it was devastated by galloping inflation. Soon after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, one of the most notorious episodes took place when nationalistically minded students set fire to thousands of Jewish, socialist, and other ‘un-German’ books in various university towns on 10 May 1933. The works of Freud, Marx, Heinrich Mann, Kurt Tucholsky, and hundreds of others were ceremoniously burnt. These events presaged tighter control of the production and distribution of written material. Authors wanting to continue publishing were obliged to join the Reichsschrifttumkammer, established under the aegis of Goebbels’s Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda in September 1933. Publishers and booksellers were made to toe the line in the same way. Thus, in 1934 the Jewish firm of Ullstein was ‘Aryanized’. While a small number of Jewish publishers such as the Schocken-Verlag were initially tolerated, from the end of 1938 all Jewish businesses were forbidden. Lists of prohibited books and authors were drawn up, but these were not divulged to the book trade, so that booksellers needed to be extremely circumspect in selecting their stock. The works of émigré authors such as Thomas Mann and ‘decadent’ writers such as Robert Musil and Joseph Roth were forbidden, and books were removed from libraries or placed under restrictions. Concomitant with such repressive measures were various initiatives to promote officially approved works—couples getting married were presented with Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

World War II and the postwar division of Germany inevitably had enormous consequences for both library provision and the book trade. Many libraries were destroyed (15–20 million books were lost), though precautions had been taken to evacuate some major collections: the Prussian State Library’s stock of 3 million books and 71,600 MSS was dispersed from Berlin to some 30 sites throughout the country.

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