Inexpensive books for everyone:In post-war Germany, Ernst Rowohlt put the first paperbacks on the market in Hamburg. On March 27, 1946, he was able to open the new Rowohlt Verlag there with a British license. A portrait.
by Vivienne Schumacher
Ernst Rowohlt, born on June 23, 1887 in Bremen, was only 21 years old when he published a volume of poetry in Leipzig, the center of the book trade at the time - without money and at his own risk. All he can refer to is his apprenticeship in a Leipzig printer and in bookshops in Munich and Paris. The volume of poems "Songs of Summer Nights" by his school friend Gustav C. Edzard was published in 1908. A year later, "Katerpoesie" by Paul Scheerbart followed. At that time, the young Rowohlt had neither a publisher's address nor an entry in the commercial register.
Rowohlt's short time at the first publishing house in Leipzig
This changes in 1910. Ernst Rowohlt meets Kurt Wolff, who invests money in the publishing house and later becomes Rowohlt's co-publisher. Together they publish numerous books. It quickly becomes apparent that Rowohlt has a flair for talented poets. Among other things, he discovered Georg Heym, who was the same age, and published the first works of Franz Kafka as well as the well-known children's book "Peterchens Mondfahrt" by Gerdt von Bassewitz. But then there are violent arguments between Rowohlt and his partner Kurt Wolff. Ernst Rowohlt left the publishing house in 1912 and worked as an authorized officer at S. Fischer Verlag and Hyperion Verlag in Berlin.
At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Ernst Rowohlt volunteered for the army, trained as a pilot and remained a soldier until the end of 1918.
The second publisher - successes, emigration and return
Kurt Tucholsky was also one of the Rowohlt authors. He died in 1935 while emigrating.With military medals in his luggage, Rowohlt returned to Berlin and founded his second publishing house in early 1919, with financial support from friends in Leipzig. His sociability and his flair for bestselling authors help him to succeed. He publishes works by Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin, Kurt Tucholsky, Hans Fallada and Joachim Ringelnatz, among others. He also publishes weekly magazines such as "Die Literarische Welt" and the left-wing intellectual weekly "Das Tage-Buch".
In 1928, Rowohlt discovered contemporary literature from the USA. Rowohlt was one of the first to translate books by Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner. His son Heinrich Maria Ledig supported him from 1931 - at that time Rowohlt had not yet officially recognized the son, who was born illegitimate in 1908, as his biological offspring, he later became his successor.
Also in 1931, Rowohlt got into financial difficulties. His house bank goes bankrupt and he has to sell two thirds of his business to Ullstein. In 1932, however, Rowohlt brought out a world bestseller:"Little Man - What Now?" by Hans Fallada. The publisher is back in the black.
Ernst Rowohlt:biographical data compact
* 06/23/1887 in Bremen
1908 Founding of the first Rowohlt publishing house in Leipzig
1912 Ernst Rowohlt leaves the publishing house
1913 Authorized signatory at S. Fischer Verlag, managing director of Hyperion Verlag in Berlin
1914-1918 Soldier in World War I
1919 Foundation of the second Rowohlt publishing house in Berlin
1937 Entry into the NSDAP
1938 Profession ban and emigration to Brazil
1940 Return to Germany
1941-1943 Wehrmacht soldier
1943 Nazis close Rowohlt-Verlag
1945-1946 Founding of the third Rowohlt publishing house in Stuttgart and Hamburg
1950 Merger of the locations in Hamburg
1951 First heart attack
1957 Award of the Grand Cross of Merit
† 12/1/1960 in Hamburg
Publishing in the Third Reich and emigration
Shortly after the Nazis came to power in 1933, the National Socialists banned 50 percent of Rowohlt's publications. They have 46 works confiscated and burned - including books by Jewish authors such as Emil Ludwig and works by opponents of the regime such as Kurt Tucholsky and Ernest Hemingway, who openly spoke out against the dictatorship.
Although Rowohlt joined the NSDAP in 1937, this step did not prevent him from being expelled from the Reich Literature Chamber a year later by the Nazis and thus being banned from working. Reason:"camouflage of Jewish writers". Rowohlt published the biography "Adalbert Stifter" by the Jewish writer Bruno Adler under a pseudonym. He also holds on to his Jewish secretary and his Jewish editor, Paul Mayer. In 1938, Rowohlt packed his bags and emigrated to Brazil to join the family of his third wife. His son Heinrich Maria Ledig continues to run the publishing house.
Back to Hitler Germany
At the end of 1940 - in the second year of the war - Ernst Rowohlt suddenly returned "home to the Reich". Two months later, in February 1941, he went to Greece and later to the Caucasus front as a captain in the Wehrmacht.
"My return to Germany came from the feeling that if I wanted to work at all as a passionate publisher in Germany after the collapse of the Third Reich, I would have to get in touch with the German people again, even in the greatest misery," he says say later. What motives actually moved him can only be speculated about today. In June 1943, Ernst Rowohlt was dismissed from the Wehrmacht because of "political unreliability". At the same time the Nazis close the publishing house.
The third publisher - licensed by the military government
"Good literature doesn't need an expensive binding," Ernst Rowohlt is said to have once said. His paperbacks changed the book market.As early as autumn 1945, Heinrich Maria Ledig received the license from the Americans to reopen the shop in Stuttgart. However, Ernst Rowohlt is drawn to Hamburg:In his opinion, the Hanseatic city would be a cultural center in a new Germany. With a license from the British military government to found a publishing house, he opened his publishing house on March 27, 1946 on the Elbe. The company is initially accommodated in the Broschkehaus, in July the publishing house moves into its own rooms in the Rathausstraße.
The first paperbacks
In the same year he published the first "rororo" booklet - the abbreviation stands for "Rowohlt's Rotations-Romane" and refers to novels that are printed like a newspaper using the rotation method. However, the brilliant idea of printing literature cheaply on newsprint and in newspaper format was not Ernst Rowohlt's idea, as he later conceded. It comes from his son Heinrich Maria Ledig. Among the first "rororo" prints are "Typhoon" by Joseph Conrad and "In Another Land" by Hemmingway.
Great literature at a low price
In 1950 the publishers merged. The Stuttgart business moves to the Hanseatic city. On June 17 of the same year, the first paperback in the republic for the Rowohlt publishing house goes to press. Again, Heinrich Maria Ledig is the source of the ideas. At a book fair in New York, he found out about the so-called pocket books:books in small format for your hand or trouser pocket.
Ernst Rowohlt implemented the idea immediately and produced good literature on cheap paper at low prices. He wants to attract new readers who will then "slowly but surely start buying books that aren't available in cheap editions." Among the first four paperbacks is the publisher's first successful novel:"Kleiner Mann - was nun?" by Hans Fallada - for 1.50 DM.
Federal Cross of Merit and honorary doctorate
In the years that followed, the business flourished, but from 1955 Ernst Rowohlt was increasingly struggling with illnesses. Heinrich Maria Ledig remains reserved, but increasingly takes over the management of the publishing house.
At the age of 70, Ernst Rowohlt was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his cultural services, and the University of Leipzig awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Last wish before Rowohlt's death:publishing house in Reinbek
From 1960 to 2019, Rowohlt Verlag had its headquarters in Reinbek near Hamburg.Even in Leipzig and Berlin, Rowohlt had wanted to move his publishing house out of the city and into the countryside. A year before his death, he can finally fulfill his wish. In the spring of 1959 he laid the foundation stone for the publishing house in Reinbek himself.
On December 1, 1960, the passionate publisher died as a result of his second heart attack. Ernst Rowohlt's relatives put his first book, "Songs of Summer Nights" by Gustav C. Edzard, and his last, the collected works of Kurt Tucholsky, in the coffin, just as the heroes once did their horses and weapons.
Rowohlt books - in everyone's hands to this day
After Ernst Rowohlt's death, his son Heinrich Maria Ledig took over the management of the company. In 1982, Ledig-Rowohlt sold the publishing house to the Georg von Holtzbrinck publishing group. Today, Rowohlt consists of a group of publishers, which also includes other houses in Hamburg and Berlin. The "rororo" paperbacks and the children's and youth books from the Rotfuchs series are still among the popular classics. The publisher has also been offering most of its publications as e-books for around ten years.
Relocation of the publishing house to the Hamburg Bieberhaus 2019
The red fox as the symbol for the children's offer of the publishing house stands as a rocking fox in the new publishing house.After 68 years in Reinbek, Rowohlt Verlag is finally moving into its new domicile in spring 2019:it occupies the third and fourth floors of the Hamburg Bieberhaus right next to the main train station. The Ohnsorg Theater is housed in the building on Heidi-Kabel-Platz.