About Detroiter Abend-Post. (Detroit [Mich.]) 18??-19??
Detroit [Mich.] (18??-19??)

Detroiter Abend-Post

In 1852, August Marxhausen, a German immigrant with newspaper training, responded to an ad placed by Dr. Peter Klein seeking to found a German-language newspaper in Detroit. Marxhausen came to Michigan and began working on the Michigan Demokrat. However political differences with the paper's owner soon arose over the issue of slavery, and in November 1854 August and his brother Conrad, who had joined him in Detroit, began to publish their own German-language paper, the Michigan Journal, which supported the Republican Party. By 1866, the brothers' partnership had frayed. Conrad continued to publish the Michigan Journal. Two years later, August launched the daily Detroiter Abend Post, which developed a reputation for solid and even-handed reporting. August Marxhausen, who was often described as Detroit's leading German citizen, served as its publisher until his death in 1910.

The Detroiter Abend Post remained in family hands until 1934, when it was bought by Ernest Sahlmann, who bankrupted the publication. Its assets were to be sold by the federal court in November 1938, but several German-American financial angels, as well as the Post Printing Company, saved the paper from that fate. The most important of these benefactors was Oscar Keydel, who as president revived the Abend Post and eventually became its sole owner. At the same time, the owner of the Post Printing Company, Erwin Shoe, kept a supportive hand in the paper. Although he later sold his company's interest, Shoe nevertheless ensured the regular publication of the Abend Post's on his company's press until his death in 1960.

Shoe's death created new problems for the newspaper. His Post Printing Company, which had always found a way to print the Abend Post regardless of other commitments, turned to publishing more profitable advertising papers. Faced with new challenges, the Keydel family sold the Abend Post in 1963 to Knuth Beth, a 25-year-old German immigrant who had arrived in the United States in 1960. Because of increasing production costs, Beth, made the paper a weekly in 1973. In April 1980, he renamed it the Nordamerikanische Wochen-Post ("North American Weekly Post"). Beth remained committed to German-language publications. In 1991, he bought two failing German-language publications, one in Chicago and the other in Milwaukee, and combined them with the Wochen-Post. The paper remains in the Beth family today.

Provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library