Vossische Zeitung

The Vossische Zeitung (more precisely: "(Königlich Privilegierte) Berlinische Zeitung von Staats- und Gelehrten Sachen") was the well-known liberal German newspaper that was published in Berlin (1721–1934). Its predecessor was founded in 1704. Among the editors of the "aunt Voss" were Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Willibald Alexis, Theodor Fontane and Kurt Tucholsky.

Until the second year of the Third Reich's reign over Germany, the publication was generally regarded as Germany's national newspaper of record, just as The Times and Le Temps were to Great Britain and France, respectively. At this point, the Vossische Zeitung was dissolved by the official, state-sanctioned political party, the all-powerful NSDAP, which circulated its own nationally distributed newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter.

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front was serialised in the Vossische Zeitung in November and December 1928.

Arthur Koestler was the Vossische Zeitung's science editor in the last years of the Weimar Republic. In his autobiography, Koestler strongly criticized the Vossische Zeitung's management for "bending with the times" - for example, dropping the campaign against the death penalty which the paper had carried out for many years, tacitly "getting rid" of Jewish staff (though the owners were Jewish themselves) and hiring new staff with markedly German Nationalist tendencies. Koestler noted that this "betrayal by the flagship of German Liberalism" was one of the factors which at the time made him join the German Communist Party.

No effort was made to revive the Vossische Zeitung after the fall of Nazi Germany.

Personnel

Hans Zehrer was foreign editor from 1925 to 1931, and then editor-in-chief.