Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Owner(s) | Jes Rau |
Founded | 1834 |
Language | German |
Headquarters | Sarasota, Florida |
ISSN | 1542-1465 |
Website | http://www.germancorner.com/NYStaatsZ/ |
The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, nicknamed "The Staats", claims to be the leading German-language weekly newspaper in the United States [1] and is one of the oldest, having been published since the mid-1830s. In the late 19th century, it was one of New York City's major daily newspapers, exceeded in circulation only by the New York World and the New-York Tribune . [2] Among other achievements, as of its sesquicentennial anniversary in 1984 it had never missed a publication date, thereby laying claim to the title of being continuously published longer than any other newspaper (of any language) in America. [3]
The Staats-Zeitung was founded in New York City in 1834 by a society of German-American businessmen. [4] The partners included George Zahm, Stepan Molitor, Conrad Braeker, and Gustav Adolph Neumann, with Neumann serving as editor-in-chief (as well as reporter and production foreman). Neumann subsequently purchased shares of the enterprise until, in the late 1830s, he obtained a majority, after which the society was dissolved and he became sole owner. The first issue was published on December 24, 1834. The nascent newspaper consisted of four pages and was printed weekly using a Washington hand-press. Initial circulation was small, limited by the capacity of the press (2000 impressions per day) and by the size of the audience (primarily German immigrants). At that time there were approximately 10,000 German-born citizens in New York City.
Growth during the first few years of the paper's existence was also impeded by the Financial Panic of 1837, but by 1839 it was sufficiently successful to move to a location on Frankfort Street, a few blocks from City Hall. Under Neumann's guidance, improvements to the physical plant were undertaken to support the growth that accompanied its increasing influence. In 1843, on obtaining a single cylinder hand-operated press that could print 600 sheets per hour, he converted the Staats-Zeitung to a tri-weekly publication. [4]
The paper's staff also expanded as it grew. Notable additions included: Jacob Uhl, who may have been hired as a printer as early as 1836; [2] Jacob's wife Anna Uhl, who worked as a compositor, secretary, and business manager; [5] and Oswald Ottendorfer, who appears to have been hired in the counting room in 1850. [2] All had a role to play in the unfolding story.
In 1845 Jacob Uhl bought ownership and publishing rights from Neumann who, nonetheless, continued in an editorial capacity until 1853. Working together, Jacob and Anna Uhl increased both advertising patronage and circulation, enabling a shift to daily publication not long after the purchase. [4] Subsequently, the paper's physical plant was moved to and combined with a printing office owned by Jacob Uhl, and a Sunday edition was added on January 3, 1848. The enhanced paper quickly outgrew both the press capabilities and the physical space of the printing office, and in 1850 Uhl purchased property specifically to house the Staats-Zeitung. He installed the most rapid printing presses then available in a new building erected on the property for that purpose. [4]
When Jacob Uhl died in 1852, Anna Uhl took over management of the newspaper. The paper continued to thrive, and by 1857 another expansion was required. Anna Uhl purchased property on what was then Chatham Street (also known at that time as "Newspaper Row", now Park Row) and had a suitable building erected. One of the first rotary type-revolving presses was installed, increasing the publishing capacity to 4,000 papers per hour. [4]
In 1858, Anna Uhl appointed Oswald Ottendorfer – who had gradually been contributing more assistance – as editor. In 1859 Anna Uhl and Oswald Ottendorfer were married, and continued to operate the paper together, with Oswald serving as editor and publisher while Anna functioned as business manager. In 1873 another expansion was completed under the German-American architect J. William Schickel at 17 Chatham Street. Anna Ottendorfer continued as business manager until shortly before her death in 1884 when her son Edward Uhl [6] succeeded her. Together Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer developed the Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper. By the 1870s, its circulation was comparable to English-language newspapers like the New York Tribune and the New York Times . [7]
In 1879, the property of the paper was changed into a stock company. [8] When Oswald Ottendorfer died in 1900, the newspaper was sold to Herman Ridder, who had become manager and trustee in 1890. [9] Ridder went on to contribute to the foundation of the Knight Ridder conglomerate, and the Staats-Zeitung gradually became a side line. It stayed in the Ridder family until 1953, when it was sold to the Steuer family who changed from a daily newspaper to three times a week and finally a weekly. In 1989, it was sold to Jes Rau.
From 1968 to 1969, the German entertainer and comedian Herbert Feuerstein was editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
The German-American businessmen who founded the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung in 1834 did so with a specific agenda in mind. The paper was to be the voice of German-Americans who opposed the Whig Party, then the dominant political force in New York City. [4] This stance aligned the paper with the objectives of the Jacksonian Democrats, who were at that time developing the Tammany Hall political machine. Mr. Neumann's editorials took forceful and animated positions in support of the interests of German-American immigrants who sought to become full participants in the governance of their new home. [4]
However, the paper was also concerned with events in Europe, undoubtedly because German immigration at this time was often motivated by political repression in Germany. Jacob Uhl, for example, is said to have left Germany a year or two after being jailed for participating in a democratic riot in Frankfurt. [2] As owner of the paper, he supported the German Revolution of 1848. Oswald Ottendorfer was an active participant in those European uprisings – in 1848 in Vienna and in 1849 in Saxony. His passion for things political remained after he immigrated to America, and he continued to develop the political clout of the Staats-Zeitung after he became editor in 1858. [4]
From 1860 to 1864, Franz Umbscheiden – who also participated in the German Revolution of 1848 – was on the staff. [10]
Leading up to World War II, the paper had an evolving view of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. In 1934, the Staats-Zeitung opposed the "mock trial" of Hitler to be held at Madison Square Garden, calling Nazi Germany a "friendly nation" and asking the U.S. to respect "the laws and deeds of the statutory regime of the German Reich; the laws and deeds of the lawful administration of government of a friendly power". [11] A year earlier, however, the paper published an editorial, entitled "Blind Fanaticism" and signed by its then editor, Benjamin F. Ridder, denouncing the Nazi persecution of Jews. [12] Later, the paper revealed a strongly anti-Nazi position, publishing many anti-Nazi editorials and articles, despite Friends of New Germany leader Heinz Spanknöbel’s attempt to storm the paper's office and force the editors to write Nazi-sympathetic articles. [13]
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. In Nazi Germany, it was considered the only mass publication not completely controlled by the Propagandaministerium under Joseph Goebbels.
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official public face of the Nazi Party until its last edition at the end of April 1945. The paper was banned and ceased publication between November 1923, after Adolf Hitler's arrest for leading the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, and February 1925, the approximate date of the relaunching of the Party.
Carl Albert Fritz Michael Gerlich was a German journalist and historian, and one of the main journalistic resistors of Adolf Hitler. He was arrested, later killed and cremated at the Dachau concentration camp.
The Vossische Zeitung was a nationally known Berlin newspaper that represented the interests of the liberal middle class. It was also generally regarded as Germany's national newspaper of record. In the Berlin press it held a special role due to the fact that by way of its direct predecessors it was the oldest newspaper in the city. The name went back to Christian Friedrich Voss, who was its owner from 1751 to 1795, but Vossische Zeitung became its official name only after 1911. It ceased publication in 1934 under pressure from the Nazi state.
Friends of New Germany, sometimes called Friends of the New Germany, was an organization founded in the United States by German immigrants to support Nazism and the Third Reich.
The Long Island Daily Press was a daily newspaper that was published in Jamaica, Queens. It was founded in 1821 as the Long Island Farmer. The paper’s founder, Henry C. Sleight, was born in New York City in 1792, and raised in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Sleight got his start as a newspaperman when he worked on the staff of the Suffolk County Gazette, a weekly newspaper published in Sag Harbor. During the War of 1812 Sleight enlisted in the army and saw action on the Kentucky frontier. After the war he remained in Kentucky for a few years, during which time he published another weekly newspaper, the Messenger, and later went into the mercantile business. After suffering heavy business losses due to a fire, Sleight returned to New York and settled in Jamaica, where he established the Long Island Farmer.
The Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden was a German-language nationwide newspaper based in Amsterdam, which was published during almost the entire occupation of the Netherlands in World War II from June 5, 1940 to May 5, 1945, the day of the German capitulation in the "Fortress Holland". Its objective was to influence the public opinion in the Netherlands, especially the one of the Germans in this country.
Illinois Staats-Zeitung was one of the most well-known German-language newspapers of the United States; it was published in Chicago from 1848 until 1922. Along with the Westliche Post and Anzeiger des Westens, both of St. Louis, it was one of the three most successful German-language newspapers in the United States Midwest, and described as "the leading Republican paper of the Northwest", alongside the Chicago Tribune. By 1876, the paper was printing 14,000 copies an hour and was second only to the Tribune in citywide circulation.
The Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital are a pair of historic buildings at 135 and 137 Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The buildings house the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, as well as the women's workspace The Wing within the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic hospital.
Valentin Oswald Ottendorfer was a United States journalist associated with the development of the German-language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper. He served a term as a member of the New York City Board of Aldermen and as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York. He also served three times as an elector of the United States Electoral College. In addition to his political and journalistic pursuits, Ottendorfer was a notable philanthropist in both Europe and the United States. Today, he is best remembered as the donor whose contribution founded the Ottendorfer Public Library in Manhattan, which bears his name.
Anna Ottendorfer was a German-American journalist and philanthropist. She was associated with the development of the German-language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung, published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
Herman Ridder was an American newspaper publisher and editor.
Gustavus Adolphus Neumann was born on May 20, 1807, in Görlitz on the Neisse River, Saxony. Neumann has been labeled "one of the ablest German-American editors" of his time. His editorials dealt with, among other topics, the Americanization of the immigrant, and expressed strong and clear ideas on the subject.
German American journalism includes newspapers, magazines, and the newer media, with coverage of the reporters, editors, commentators, producers and other key personnel. The German Americans were thoroughly assimilated by the 1920s, and German language publications one by one closed down for lack of readers.
Oregon Deutsche Zeitung, launched in 1867, was the first of several German language newspapers published in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Neu England Rundschau was a weekly German language newspaper published by The German-American Publishing Company, Wisly Lithograph Company, and subsequently the Wisly-Brooks Company, Inc. of Holyoke, Massachusetts from 1883 until 1942, the longest running German newspaper in Massachusetts. A second edition of the paper was also sold in Connecticut under the masthead Connecticut Staats-Zeitung. Following scrutiny by the US Department of Justice and Office of Strategic Services of the broader German American press, as well as declining circulation, the paper ceased publication in 1942 during the Second World War.
Joseph Edward Ridder was an American newspaper publisher who was the chairman of Ridder Publications. He was the son of newspaper magnate Herman Ridder.
The New-Yorker Abend-Zeitung was a daily evening German language newspaper in New York City published from 1851 to 1874 that directly competed with the Democratic New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.
...in a role of raconteur unbeknown to his friends, [he] was regularly contributing illustrated articles...telling the York State Germans and the subscribers in all parts of the world about his long journeys and adventures....(subscription required)
Media related to New Yorker Staats-Zeitung at Wikimedia Commons