On the History of Gebr. Mann Verlag – From Printing Workshop to Renowned Academic and Art Publisher
1917 On 2 December 1917, Hermann Hartmann acquired the jobbing printworks of the brothers Albert and Adolf Mann, founded in 1890 at Taubenstrasse 8/9 in Berlin-Mitte; this date is regarded as the founding day of the newly oriented family business. He was supported by his sons Kurt Hartmann (from 1919) and Dr Otto Hartmann (from 1924). Besides printing forms and brochures for clients such as Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and the banking house S. Bleichröder, the company’s remit soon expanded into book production, for publishers including S. Fischer, Bruno Cassirer and Kiepenheuer.
Map showing Taubenstrasse
8/9 in Berlin-Mitte.
1920 The acquisition of the printing firm I. Harrwitz Nachf. in February 1920 brought a marked expansion of the business. The company moved into the more spacious works of the Harrwitz firm in the “Handelsstätte Bellealliance” at Friedrichstrasse 16, giving ample room for a workforce that had swelled to more than 30 employees.
Historical postcards of the “Handelsstätte Bellealliance”.
1925 At the end of 1925, the Gebr. Mann printworks, together with the Ganymed collotype printers, brought out its first book under its own imprint, conceived as an annual gift for friends and acquaintances. This publication – Georg Büchner’s “Woyzeck” – marked the beginning of the tradition of annual gift editions, which continued into the 1980s.
Heinrich von Kleist,
Die Marquise von O…, 1928.
1930 By the start of the 1930s the printworks employed around 125 people and, with 17 high-speed letterpress machines, met the demand of leading publishers and academic institutions at home and abroad. That same year the Hartmanns became publishers in their own right, focusing on archaeology and art history. Among their early publications were the monographs on Aegina, Santorini, Pergamon, Paestum and Corcyra that are still regarded as foundational works today.
Acht Maler stellen aus, 1930.
1933 The upheaval following the National Socialists’ seizure of power had at first no perceptible consequences for the company, now trading as “Gebr. Mann Verlag”. Because its programme was directed at antiquity and art history, the publishing house remained untouched by the propagandistic, völkisch conception of art promoted under the Nazis. Tellingly, the annual gift edition for 1933 was Martin Luther’s “On the Freedom of a Christian”, which appeared in 500 numbered copies.
Martin Luther, Von der Freiheit
eines Christenmenschen, 1933.
1940 The art historian Carl Georg Heise, forced out of his post as director of the St Annen Museum in Lübeck by the Nazis in 1933 and by then working for Gebr. Mann Verlag, expanded the programme from 1940 with the so-called Kunstbriefe (“Art Letters”). Each handy small-octavo booklet was devoted to a single work of art, presented across 32 pages of text and up to 16 plates. The booklets reached print runs in the millions during the war years; between 1940 and 1949, a total of 57 numbered Kunstbriefe appeared.
Philipp Otto Runge.
Die Tageszeiten, 1944.
1945 On 3 February 1945 the publishing house at Friedrichstrasse 16 was largely destroyed in a bombing raid, in which four members of staff lost their lives. A few days later the company moved what was left of the business into temporary quarters at Hauptstrasse 26 in Berlin-Schöneberg. After the end of the war, the remaining printing equipment was dismantled by the Red Army. Four months on, on 17 October, the American military government granted Kurt and Otto Hartmann the first licence for a book publisher in the American sector of Berlin.
Advertisement “Licence for a Berlin Book Publisher” in the Tagesspiegel,
18 October 1945.
1959 The 1950s were marked by outstanding book editions published in collaboration with the German Archaeological Institute, as well as the first volumes of the inventory work “Buildings and Art Monuments of Berlin” – carried in large measure by Paul Ortwin Rave, who served the publishing house as academic adviser.
Rudolf Anthes, The Head
of Queen Nofretete, 1958.
1967 On 2 December 1967 the company “Gebr. Mann Verlag / Brüder Hartmann Druckerei” marked its 50th anniversary with a ceremony and an exhibition. Under the motto “Kunstwissenschaft und Buchkunst” (Art Scholarship and the Art of the Book), the show offered an overview of the programme and presented more than 30 titles named among the “Most Beautiful Books of the Year” since 1952. The showpiece of the house’s publishing and printing work was a seven-colour collotype edition of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.
Walter-Herwig Schuchhardt,
Antike Plastik, 1962
1977 “France and Belgium”, the second volume in the series “The Early Poster in Europe and the USA”, catalogued more than a thousand posters – including all of Toulouse-Lautrec’s work as well as pieces by Chéret, Grasset, Bonnard and de Feure. With artist biographies, introductory essays and rich colour plates, the volume became a standard reference work that serves as a significant source far beyond art history.
Das frühe Plakat in
Europa und den USA, 1973.
1987 On 2 December 1987 the publishing house celebrated its 70th “birthday”. After the withdrawal of Dr Heinz Peters, who, as Kurt Hartmann’s successor, had led the publisher for more than 24 years and initiated the founding of the Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft in 1964, the catalogue listed more than 800 titles in print. The basis of the programme continued to be monographs and series works published in collaboration with leading institutions – most notably the German Archaeological Institute, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with its state museums, the State Conservator of Berlin, and the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.
1993 The appointment of Andreas Catsch, formerly editor-in-chief of the Ullstein Taschenbuch Verlag, marked the beginning of an era characterised by creativity and innovation, with a thematic focus on architecture and urban planning. Until the end of 2000, a considerable number of important individual publications appeared alongside the ongoing series works. His great achievement lay above all in reissuing rare architecture books of the 1920s in facsimile, among them the volumes of “Neue Werkkunst” and the issues of Bruno Taut’s journal “Frühlicht”.
Heinrich Straumer, “Neue Werkkunst” series, 1997.
2006 UUnder the leadership of Dr Hans Robert Cram, the company added Reimer Verlag alongside Gebr. Mann Verlag in 2006. Together with Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, each of the three imprints publishes in line with its own distinct profile.
Bruno Taut. Kunstgewerbe und Möbel für Japan, 2023.