Theodor Wolff (2 August 1868 – 23 September 1943) was a German writer who was influential as a journalist, critic and newspaper editor. He was born and died in Berlin. Between 1906 and 1933 he was the chief editor of the politically liberal newspaper Berliner Tageblatt.
His talent as a writer won praise from an unlikely quarter: In 1939 Joseph Goebbels recommended his Propaganda Ministry staff to study Wolff's contributions in back numbers of the newspaper that he had edited. According to Goebbels, despite him being Jewish, the quality of Wolff's writing was matched by only very few in Germany.
Life
Early years
Theodor Wolff was born in Berlin, second of the four recorded children of a fabric wholesaler from Silesia called Adam Wolff by his marriage to Recha, née Davidsohn. Recha was a doctor's daughter from Danzig. Wolff grew up in a prosperous Jewish family. He rapidly achieved good results at the prestigious King William I Grammar school in Berlin.
He married in 1902, in Paris, the actress Marie Louise Charlotte Anna Hickethier (known as Änne), coming from a Protestant Prussian family. The couple had three children: Richard Wolff (born in Paris, 14 June 1906), Rudolf Wolff (born in Berlin, 9 July 1907) and Lilly Wolff (born in Berlin, 7 August 1909). The children were baptised as Protestants.
Journalism mostly
In 1887 Wolff's cousin Rudolf Mosse recruited him to his successful publishing conglomerate. Mosse was 25 years older than Wolff, to whom he provided a thorough commercial and journalistic training across all the departments of his publishing business, the "Mosse-Verlag". During these years Wolff also found time to write some early novels, inspired by Theodor Fontane whom he greatly admired, and several plays which were staged in Berlin, though in his memoirs he would later describe these as "not particularly distinguished". In 1889 he was one of the ten co-founders of the Berlin theatre company, Freie Bühne ("Free stage").
Wollf's written contributions to the Tageblatt focused initially on cultural matters and literature, but he soon switched his focus towards political journalism. An early journalistic success at the newspaper was a daily bulletin on the health of the emperor (who was dying of throat cancer). Emperor Frederick died in June 1888 and Wolff embarked on an itinerant career, writing pieces and sending them in to Berlin by telegraph from, successively, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Italy. In 1894 the paper sent him to Paris, where he would live for the next twelve years.
As the Paris correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt Wolff, identified in print only as "our Paris correspondent", produced numerous contributions covering public life in France. During 1896 he became known for his coverage of the Dreyfus affair, one of the most high-profile news stories of the decade in western Europe. His early ambitions to become a novelist were now being overtaken by his success as a journalist.
Editor-in-chief to the Berliner Tageblatt
1906–1918
In autumn 1906, Rudolf Mosse offered Theodor Wolff the top job at the Berliner Tageblatt. Between 1906 and 1933 Wolff served the Tageblatt as editor-in-chief, developing it into one of Germany's most influential newspapers. Circulation under his stewardship rose from 100,000 to more than 300,000. His powerful prose was notably on display in the Monday editions of the paper for which he wrote the lead article, frequently exhorting fellow citizens to political participation. In respect of foreign policy, he quickly positioned the Tageblatt in opposition to "great power politics", imperial and military assertiveness and the risk of international isolation to which these were leading Germany. On domestic issues the paper's attitude under Wolff favoured civil rights and a liberal-democratic approach, advocating a "parliamentarisation" ("Parlamentarisierung") of the constitution and vigorously opposing the "Dreiklassenwahlrecht" which had been introduced in 1849 and which was, by the beginning of the twentieth century, widely perceived as a badly flawed application of the democratic ideal.
At this time Wolff promoted numerous writers including Victor Auburtin whose individualistic approach he valued and who played an important part in defining the newspaper's liberal profile. Meanwhile, Germany's traditionalist Chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, refused any interviews or statements to the Tageblatt while his successor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, instructed all government departments to steer well clear of the newspaper's reports and opinions.