Akademie Verlag

The Akademie Verlag, formerly Akademie-Verlag Berlin, since 1946 a German academic publisher based in Berlin. He publishes works from the fields of philosophy, history, art and cultural studies as well as literature and linguistics.

In the signet of publishing can be found since 1957 the head of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the founder of the Academy in 1700, and the Latin motto " theoria cum praxi " (theory and practice).

History

Founding of the publishing house

After the reopening of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin ( in 1972 renamed the Academy of Sciences of the GDR ) on 1 July 1946, decided by this statute, among other things, starting their own publishing envisaged. Thus, the Akademie Verlag was launched after the decision of the total meeting in December 1946. On January 21, 1947, the magistrate issued the business license, which meant that the scientific activities of the Academy no longer had to be cared for in different publishers, but could be bundled in the Akademie-Verlag. The program is not limited in this case to official publications of the Academy, but also included scientific works by other institutions and individuals.

Early years of the publishing house

1947 published 14 books and 5 magazines in publishing, but continued works and above all editions, yearbooks and individual works let the program grow steadily. Thanks to the basis of the Academy of publishing took place in the emerging Cold War fast access to leading scientists at home and abroad, which the publisher has established itself as a valued partner.

The Akademie Verlag in the GDR

Thanks to the important position occupied by the Academy of Sciences in the research, the publishing house became the largest scientific publisher of the GDR. In 1956, the program counted 350 book titles and 45 magazines. In 1981 there are already 10,000 book titles and 59 journals containing almost 500 magazines. The first still quite clear program grew in width and involved some 25 scientific relations of the humanities and natural sciences, medicine and technology. New forms of publication, such as dictionaries, scientific pocket books, manuals and special monographs made ​​the product range complete.

Political influence and economic conditions

Although the publisher thanks to the connection to the Academy of Sciences was not under the control of the Ministry of Culture, as almost all East German publishers, the party's influence was beginning to be seen on the publishing program and party representatives publishing their work in publishing. Moreover grew with the Academy reform the Soviet model distrust of " all-German " scientific publications, so the publisher can find a happy medium and had to argue wise to continue projects can.

In addition to these developments, saw the Akademie Verlag - as well as other publishers - faced with various difficulties: paper shortages, lack of paper quality, technically backward printers etc.

1989/1990

As part of the " turn" could publishing employees who refused to adapt to the SED regime in large numbers to participate in East Berlin at the erupting life. So the long-term publishing director distrust was pronounced and a colleague from the editing history to the new publishing director.

Article 38 of which came into force on 3 October 1990 Unification Treaty concerned the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and thus also the publisher of 1976 was made ​​by deletion from the Register of a facility of the Academy: the Joint Committee established by the new Länder and Berlin decided on the future of publishing. After numerous offers to buy from publishing companies from Germany and abroad, the Academy publishing house was bought on January 3, 1991 by the VCH Verlag Weinheim group, which brought deep cuts in the structure of the Academy Publisher. So the bloated by socialist standards manpower had to be reduced: from 170 employees in 1991 are in the anniversary year in 1996 40 operates. In addition, the wide program was limited in consultation with the parent company on the core topics philosophy, history, politics and cultural studies, art history, literature and linguistics, mathematics and physics.

By 1990, due to the materialist conception of history in the publications and the German - German history, the Publisher's products in Germany were partly taken with caution. Often, however, visitors from Germany bought the relatively inexpensive Academy books and helped them in West Germany to some distribution, which the publisher zugutekam again after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which had built up enough prestige to survive.

The Akademie Verlag today

After the sale of the Weinheimer specialist publishing group to the group John Wiley & Sons, the scientific program of the Academy publishing was transferred to the new WILEY -VCH Verlag. The entire humanities book and magazine program and the name and logo of the Academy Publishing took over on 1 October 1997, the R. Oldenbourg Verlag; Since 2004, the Oldenbourg publishing group and thus also of the Academy heard part to Cornelsen Verlag. Beginning of 2013 the Academy publishing house was taken over by the publishing house De Gruyter, together with the Oldenbourg Verlag.