Kladderadatsch

The magazine's front cover on July 9, 1848, with the grinning boy that became its trademark.

Kladderadatsch^[1] (onomatopoeic for "Crash") was a satirical German-language magazine first published in Berlin on May 7, 1848, and appearing "daily, except for weekdays". It was founded by Albert Hofmann and David Kalisch, the latter the son of a Jewish merchant and the author of several works of comedy.^[2] Publication ceased in 1944.

Background

The first edition, written almost entirely by Kalisch, saw 4,000 copies printed, all of which were sold within 24 hours. Two other writers, Ernst Dohm and Rudolf Löwenstein, were then employed. Wilhelm Scholz's drawings appeared in the second edition, and would do so for the next 40 years.^[2]

In the beginning, the magazine had a conservative bias towards the policies of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. After the 1923 takeover by the industrialist Hugo Stinnes, the tenors shifted towards German Nationalism and Nazism.^[3]

References