The Verlag Hermann Reckendorf was founded in 1918 in Berlin by the printer, commercial graphic artist, and publishing bookseller Hermann Reckendorf (1880–1936). Hermann Reckendorf quickly developed his publishing house into one of the leading publishing firms in Germany. Ninety-six percent of the share capital remained in family ownership. The publishing house was particularly known for its ongoing exhibitions to promote young art and artistic endeavours, especially after Paul Westheim’s Kunstblatt was published there from 1927. The company was based in the four-storey Reckendorf House at Hedemannstraße 24 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, a building that had already been constructed as an office building in 1912/13. Members of the Deutscher Werkbund, such as the architects Ludwig Hilberseimer, Professor Lucian Bernhard, and Fritz Schopohl, were significantly involved in designing the interior spaces of the publishing house. The publishing house employed around 100 staff, for whom Hermann Reckendorf installed a kitchen and a canteen on the fourth floor. These spaces also housed the laboratories for the radio magazines, the central broadcasting system, and the offices of the Deutscher Werkbund. In 1916 Reckendorf was appointed to lead war propaganda, which he carried out successfully. Later he led propaganda for women’s suffrage. He was involved in founding the Reichszentrale für den Heimatdienst and organised frontier donations and care for prisoners of war. He played a significant role in the German Trade Fair in Munich in 1922 and at the Leipzig Fair from 1920 to 1922. The Technical University of Stuttgart awarded Hermann Reckendorf an honorary doctorate on account of his pioneering achievements in radio technology in the 1920s.

On 1 May 1930, the Gauleitung Berlin of the NSDAP moved into the building at Hedemannstraße No. 10; at Hedemannstraße No. 31, the SA Group Berlin-Brandenburg leadership was also quartered from April for almost a year. For the progressive publishing house with a programme such as Hermann Reckendorf’s — publishing works on contemporary art and design issues, radio magazines, and books and brochures on radio, film, and photography topics — these hostile neighbours and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship marked the beginning of the end. With the July 1934 issue, the magazine Die Form ceased publication, and the publishing house stopped production. The now Nazified leadership of the Deutscher Werkbund willingly integrated into the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts.

Because he was Jewish, Reckendorf was expropriated by the Nazis as early as 1933 and his Reckendorf Verlag was “Aryanised.” From 1934, the building became the seat of the National Socialist German Labour Front (DAF). Hermann Reckendorf’s name still appeared in the Berlin address book until 1937 at the address “Reckendorf, Hermann, Dr.-Ing., publishing bookseller, Steglitz, Wuthenowerstr. 8 a.” Until 1937, the Reckendorf & Co. publishing bookshop also operated at the same address. From 1938 to 1940, Reckendorf’s wife Charlotte (née Auen) was listed in the Berlin address book at Wilmersdorf, Schlangenbader Str. 80 T. There are different accounts of Hermann Reckendorf’s later life: on the one hand, it has been claimed that he went into exile in Italy with his family, and on the other that he committed suicide in 1933; however, according to research by Roland Jaeger, he remained living in Berlin-Steglitz, where he died — possibly by suicide — at the age of 56 on 23 December 1936.

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Verlag Hermann Reckendorf. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 19, 2026, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlag_Hermann_Reckendorf