 Poster from 1899, byEphraim Moses Lilien | |
| Founder(s) | Rudolf Mosse |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1 January 1872 |
| Language | German |
| Ceased publication | 31 January 1939 |
TheBerliner Tageblatt orBT was aGerman languagenewspaper published inBerlin from 1872 to 1939. Along with theFrankfurter Zeitung, it became one of the most important liberal German newspapers of its time.
TheBerliner Tageblatt was first published byRudolf Mosse as anadvertising paper on 1 January 1872, but developed into a liberal newspaper.DuringWorld War I, the Berliner Tageblatt published disinformation on April 19, 1915, regarding the alleged use of gas by British forces. This was part of a broader German propaganda effort to accuse the Allies of employingchemical weapons, thereby deflecting attention from their own plans to use poison gas in the upcomingattack at Ypres. On 5 January 1919 the office of the newspaper was briefly occupied byFreikorps soldiers in theGerman Revolution. By 1920, theBT had achieved a dailycirculation of about 245,000.
Prior to the National Socialist administration taking office on 30 January 1933, the newspaper was particularly critical and hostile to their program. On 3 March 1933, after theReichstag fire, Rudolf Mosse's son-in-law,Hans Lachmann-Mosse, the publisher, dismissed editor in chiefTheodor Wolff because of his criticism of theNazi government and hisJewish ancestry. Wolff by then fled to theTyrol in Austria by plane.
After 1933, the National Socialist government took control of the newspaper (theGleichschaltung). However, in September 1933, special permission was granted by Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels to release the paper from any obligation to reprintNazi propaganda 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 1 April 1934. He had been the first foreign journalist to be refused a re-entry permit into theSoviet Union in 1929 for his critical reporting on thefive-year plan and prophecy offamine 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".[1] Scheffer's position eventually became untenable, and he resigned on 31 December 1936.
The paper was finally shut down by the Nazi authorities on 31 January 1939.
During the 27 years (1906–1933) whenTheodor Wolff was editor in chief, theBT became the most influential newspaper in Berlin. Wolff brought the elite of Germanjournalism to theBerliner Tageblatt. Ernst Feder andRudolf Olden ran the domestic politics section, while Josef Schwab,Max Jordan, and Maximilian Müller-Jabusch handled foreign politics. Arthur Norden and Felix Pinner were responsible for the business section. Fred Hildenbrandt headed thefeuilleton section from 1922 to 1932. Regular contributors to the feuilleton includedAlfred Polgar,Fritz Mauthner,Kurt Tucholsky,Erich Kästner,Robert Walser,Etta Federn,Otto Flake,Felix Hirsch andFrank Thiess. The chief of the theatre section wasAlfred Kerr.
From 1918 until April 1920,Kurt Tucholsky contributed 50 articles to theBerliner Tageblatt while he was also editor in chief of the satirical magazineUlk, which appeared weekly between 1913 and 1933. His novelSchloss Gripsholm (set nearGripsholm Castle) appeared in theBT from 20 March to 26 April 1931.Alfred Eisenstaedt was one of the newspaper's photographers.
Erich Everth began corresponding from theBT fromVienna in 1924. As the successor of Leopold Schmidt,Alfred Einstein was the musical critic from September 1927 until August 1933. Starting in 1925,Walter Zadek was a literary editor. Arrested in 1933 and tortured by the Nazis, Zadek then fled to Jerusalem, where he became a well-known photographer. The head of the important Central European Office from 1927 to 1933 wasHeinrich Eduard Jacob, based in Vienna. During his time at theBT, Jacob had approximately 1,000 contributions. Because he was an opponent of theAustrian Nazis, Jacob was imprisoned atDachau concentration camp after theAnschluss in 1938.
TheBT 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 and later became an editor of the magazineDas Theater.
| 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 |