STIMMEN DER ZEIT. - A journal of critical review of the intellectual, scientific, social and religious life of Germany, with the aim of bearing valid witness to Catholic truth.
It is supported by a college of writers of the Society of Jesus, but since 1930 (cf. vol. 119 [1930], p. 401) it has also opened its pages to outsiders, provided they are animated by the same Catholic ideal, and it is directed at the great public of scholars, normally taking its starting point from questions of current affairs.
It began its life in 1864 in the abbey of Maria Laach (v.), in the Eifel, then a Jesuit scholasticate, with the title «Stimmen aus Maria Laach», retained also during the exile. The first two series appeared with a periodicity not yet fixed, until 1869; issues directed to the defense of the Syllabus of Pius IX and of the project of the Vatican Council. After the war of 1870 it was transformed into a monthly, but already in 1872, once the famous «Jesuitengesetz» had been ratified in the Upper and Lower Chamber, the editorial direction was forced into exile. A law of 1874 further reduced (until 1914) the periodicity to ten fascicles a year, prescribing that no German could direct a monthly while residing abroad. The editorial direction found a first refuge in Castle Robani, near Tervueren (Brussels), from 1872 to 1879; subsequently in Blyenbeek (Holland), from 1880 to 1884; in Exaeten from 1885 to 1898; in Luxembourg from 1899 to 1908; in Valkenburg (Holland) from 1909 to 1914.
When the First World War broke out, it could be hoped that not only the Unterhaus (which had already several times revoked the iniquitous law of 1872), but also the Oberhaus, where the opposition to the repatriation was led by the imperial house of Hohenzollern itself, would repeal the law. In fact in 1914 the editorial direction moved to Munich. Since, however, Maria Laach had already been sold twenty years earlier to the Benedictines, the title was changed to S. d. Z. («Voices of the Time»), pursuing the same program, and enlightening German Catholics amid all the problems and travails of that period. More serious were the difficulties and harassments during the Third Reich. An article by P. Lippert (Mit Gewalt - Mit Geduld) earned it the first prohibition, from Dec. 1935 to March 1936. Then on 18 Apr. 1941 the Gestapo seized the house together with the precious Library; a month later the journal was suspended. It resumed after the war with vol. 138 (1946-47) with fewer writers, but helped by excellent non-Jesuits. The Library suffered no serious damage.
The collection, besides the two series of fascicles of 1864-1869, contains 150 vols., to which are to be added 119 «Ergänzungshefte», especially on historical questions, 9 fascicles on cultural questions, 4 on other researches, and 3 vols. of indexes: 1886, 1889, 1913.
Bibliography
Pietro Naber