House of the Wannsee Conference

A Scientific Publisher‘s Story:

The Publishers Fritz and Ferdinand Springer

In 1813 the family of the Jewish merchant Isidor Springer moved to Berlin. His son Julius opened a publishing firm in no. 20 Breite Straße close to the Berlin town hall. Julius Springer specialised in scientific publications. At the time of the Vormärz, he published several pamphlets and came into conflict with The Prussian censors more than once. In 1848 he actively supported the Democrats and the Liberals, he became a member of the Fortschrittspartei (Party of Progress) and fought for civil rights. His two sons Ferdinand (1846-1906) and Fritz (1850-1944) succeeded him in the direction of the company.

In 1906, they gained much prestige, when they succeeded in publishing the books of Emil Fischer, who was the first German to win the Nobel prize in chemistry (synthetic production of glucose and Veronal, a sleep-inducing drug) in 1902. The scholar lived in a villa in Hugo-Vogel-Straße in Wannsee. After his death in 1919 he was buried in the New Cemetery.

Ferdinand’s son-in-law, the physicist Richard Wachsmuth, who worked at the Technical College in Berlin, advised the publisher on its physics list. The brothers Fritz and Ferdinand lived in Tiergartenstraße and Hardenbergstraße in Berlin. They were members of the Club of Berlin (Berlin Club). Since they were both passionate yachtsmen, they moved to the Alsen colony.

Fritz bought the house of the architect Koblanck in no. 12 Straße zum Löwen (7736 square metres) and Ferdinand engaged the famous architect Alfred Messel to convert the country house and the adjacent buildings like greenhouses, the gardener`s house, the tea house and the garden hall over an area of 8792 square metres in no. 39 Straße Am Großen Wannsee. Messel had the country house built in the American shingle style with wooden shingles on the roof and the walls that can still be admired today.

The third generation, Ferdinand Junior and Julius, Fritz’s son, moved to the head of the firm in 1907. The former looked after the publisher’s scientific and medical publications while Julius was mainly in charge of engineering, pharmaceutical, agricultural and forestry publications and the internal organisation of the company. In World War I Ferdinand and Julius had to go to the front as reserve officers. During this time Fritz Springer directed the company. After the death of his brother he had retired from the publishing business.

The publishing credo of Ferdinand Junior and Julius Junior was the world-wide publication of research results. Despite the war and inflation, the number of authors and customers with the company was constantly growing. In the Weimar Republic Springer had a leading position in the field of German-language scientific and school books. From 1919 to 1932 the situation was difficult for German science. The scientific exchange with other countries was forbidden, memberships of foreign scientific societies ceased to exist, German scholars were boycotted at international congresses, it was forbidden to use the German language as scientific language and it was nearly impossible to obtain foreign literature because of the monetary situation.

On 15^th March 1933, medical publications were brought into line. This meant in fact that all Jewish authors were ousted. The Springer company could delay the loss of authors, but it could not prevent it. Furious anti-semitic attacks came especially from the field of medecine. In 1933, the ‘Sächsische Ärzteblatt‘ (‘Saxonian Medical Journal‘) noted in the article ‘Jews in Medecine‘ by Martin Staemmler that medical specialist literature was dominated by Jews and by the Springer publishing house.

In 1935, Wilhelm Baur, the director of the pro-Hitler Fritz-Eher publishing house, who was the head of the Börsenverein (German publishing trade organization) since 1934, called for the ‘aryanisation‘ of the Springer company.

Between 1933 and 1938, more than 50 editors had to leave Springer, in some areas this concerned the entire élite e.g. in political science, sociology, dermatology, immunology, psychology and partly in aesthetics and art history. In addition Jewish lecturers and students were lost.

With its scientific list, Springer could more easily escape from the Nazi dictate than publishers specializing in belletristic literature. Though the publishing house itself had to become a member of the Cultural Chamber of the Reich (RSK), its authors did not. Jews were not admitted to the RSK since 1935.

In 1933, Tönjes Lange became the general manager of the Springer company. He showed much prudence, courage and at times cunning. The ‘Reichsbürgergesetz‘ (Reich Civil Law) of 15^th September 1935 forced Julius Junior to leave the company, because he was now regarded as a citizen with limited rights. He was considered to be a Jew, since he had three Jewish grandparents. However, Ferdinand Junior was regarded as a ‘half-jew‘. Tönjes Lange took on Julius‘ field of work. In 1938, Julius was arrested and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for some time.

After the pogrom of 9^th/10^th November, the Nazi official Wilhelm Baur complained that the Springer publishing house had not been wrecked, which would have compelled Ferdinand to resign. Since Tönjes Lange was on good terms with Hjalmar Schacht from the Reich Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Reich did not want to give up the export proceeds of the Springer company. It could therefore carry on working.

The publisher’s imprint, which was created in 1881 on the basis of a design by Martin Gropius (1824-1890), bore the motto ‘Alle Zeit wach‘ (‘alert at all times‘), the initials ‘JS‘ and the year of foundation 1842. Everything was arranged around the knight from the game of chess (German: Springer = English: knight).

In 1941, the Nazis enacted a law according to which companies with Jewish names had to be renamed. The name ‘Julius‘ was removed from the imprint and the year of foundation was not mentioned anymore. Apart from ‘Beilstein‘s Handbook of Chemistry‘ which is still published today, all handbooks had to be renamed aswell.

Ferdinand Junior protested against the interpretation that the publishing house was ‘Jewish‘ by stressing that his great grandfather had fought in the War of Liberation, his father was a member of the ecclesiastical council of the ‘Berliner Sophiengemeinde‘ in Berlin-Mitte and that his father and he himself had participated in the war.

Julius Springer, the founder of the publishing firm, and his wife came from Jewish families and were baptized in 1830. Neither they nor their descendants saw themselves as Jews and in their memoirs the Jewish origin of the family is not even mentioned. Julius Springer Junior who had to bear the first name ‘Israel‘ since 1938, applied to be regarded as a ‘person of mixed blood of the first degree‘ so that he could remain a citizen of the Reich and was not considered to be a Jew. The denial of descent became a strategy to survive. In 1942, the lawyer Oskar Walter Ringleb, his brother-in-law and the son-in-law of Fritz Springer, managed to prove that Wilhelm Herz was the illegitimate child of Adalbert von Chamisso. This proof was recognized by the Reichssippenamt (Reich Sib Office).

Fritz Springer had married Emma Hertz (1856 – 1932), the daughter of a publisher. The partial ‘aryanisation‘ of their own descent saved the lives of numerous members of the Hertz and Springer families. However, this only concerned the children of Fritz Springer. He himself had to wear the Star of David. On 20^th January 1944, the Gestapo came to his country house in Wannsee to deport the 94 year old man. His daughter managed to gain some time so that the old man could take some poison. When the Gestapo saw his death throes, they left their victim alone. In the following night, Fritz Springer died. He was buried in the New Cemetery. The inscription on the gravestone has become illegible meanwhile.

His son Julius survived the war. His fortune was confiscated temporarily. In 1947, he took up the publishing business again. He died on 20^th November 1968.

Fritz Springer with his wife Emma née Hertz
under a painting by Sabine Lepsius. around 1920, Springer archive

Dorothea, Fritz Springer’s daughter and Ringleb, his son-in-law, belonged to the last elderly colonists who lived in the villa colony after 1945. After the death of his wife, Ringleb had difficulties in maintaining the house with the 27 solidly furnished rooms and four balconies which was in need of rehabilitation. He tried in vain to have it put under a preservation order.

Update: September 3, 2004