Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch (born Emil Theodor Fritsche; 28 October 1852 – 8 September 1933), was a German publisher and journalist. His antisemitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His writings also appeared under the pen names Thomas Frey, Fritz Thor, and Ferdinand Roderich-Stoltheim.

He is not to be confused with his son, also Theodor Fritsch (1895–1946), likewise a bookseller and member of the SA.

Fritsch was born Emil Theodor Fritsche, the sixth of seven children to Johann Friedrich Fritsche, a farmer in the village of Wiesenena (present-day Wiedemar) in the Prussian province of Saxony, and his wife August Wilhelmine, née Ohme. Four of his siblings died in childhood. He attended vocational school (Realschule) in Delitzsch where he learned casting and machine building. He then undertook study at the Royal Trade Academy (Königliche Gewerbeakademie) in Berlin, graduating as a technician in 1875.

In the same year Fritsche found employment in a Berlin machine shop. He gained independence in 1879 through the founding of a technical bureau associated with a publishing firm. In 1880 he founded the Deutscher Müllerbund (Miller's League) which issued the publication Der Deutsche Müller (The German Miller). In 1905 he founded the "Saxon Small Business Association." He devoted himself to this organization and to the interests of crafts and small businesses (Mittelstand), as well as to the spread of antisemitic propaganda. When he changed his name to Fritsch is unclear.

Fritsch created an early discussion forum, "Antisemitic Correspondence" in 1885 for antisemites of various political persuasions. In 1887 he sent several editions to Friedrich Nietzsche but was brusquely dismissed. He offered editorship to right-wing politician Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg in 1894, whereafter it became an organ for Sonnenberg's German Social Party under the name "German Social Articles." Fritsch' 1896 book The City of the Future became a blueprint of the German garden city movement which was adopted by Völkisch circles.

...
Wikipedia