Wolff Telegraphic Bureau

Wolff Telegraphic Bureau (WTB), German news agency founded in 1849 by physician Bernhard Wolff. Formed shortly after the Havas and Reuters news agencies, WTB served as the primary German news agency and was one of only a handful of international news services for about 75 years.

Origins

Wolff became interested in news agencies after serving as a translator of medical and financial news for Agence Havas in Paris in 1847 and 1848. He returned in 1849 to Berlin, where he worked as an editor of a newspaper and formed his own financial news cooperative, the Berlin Telegraphische Anstalt. That cooperative made early use of the spreading network of electric telegraph lines, though most of Wolff’s initial clients were banks and other businesses, not newspapers. Taking over several smaller competitors, Wolff broadened his operation to cover general news in 1855 and took on newspaper clients. By 1859 Wolff was exchanging news with Havas and Reuters. The operation underwent several name changes, finally becoming the Wolffsche Telegraphenbüro (WTB).

The Prussian government began contributing some financial support (and exerting indirect control) by 1865. A secret 1869 agreement between the government and WTB gave the latter priority use of the expanding network of German telegraph cables, in return for which Prussia gained some degree of control over the political news transmitted and even the hiring of staff. With that the news agency became effectively an instrument of Prussian official policy, though it also achieved primacy in issuing official news. Wolff retired as managing director in 1871.

News cartel

In 1856 WTB signed an exchange agreement with Havas in France and Reuters in Britain to share financial news from their respective countries. Their cooperation soon expanded to more general news, and in 1874 they agreed to create joint offices in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

By 1870 the three agencies had established a cooperative news cartel, soon dubbed “The Ring.” With each agency being responsible for a specific part of the world (WTB covered Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Scandinavia), the cartel thus eliminated overlapping reporting and its related costs. For many years, WTB controlled the national news bureaus in Sweden and Norway. Being the smallest of the three, WTB was subject to its partners’ agreement to any expansion of its services—for which it paid a premium. All three made effective use of the growing web of undersea cables and land telegraphy and were accordingly often called “wire” services. With some changes, the cartel agreement was renewed in 1890 and again in 1914.

Decline

Increasingly, by the turn of the 20th century, WTB was seen as an agency of the Prussian, and later German, government. With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the agency was cut off from its usual news sources and many of its clients when all German undersea cables were cut by the Allies. Further weakening its once strong national role, the German government set up a separate wireless news bureau, Transocean, in 1915. WTB came under full government control from 1917 to 1919. The loss of the war, Germany’s subsequent occupation, and economic turmoil greatly weakened WTB during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s. Growing competition also contributed to its decline, as Reuters and Havas then served many of its non-German territories.

WTB experienced a brief rally in the early 1930s as wireless technology allowed for more efficient news delivery. By 1932, larger newspaper subscribers used teleprinters served by a multiple-address radio system. WTB fielded the largest number of reporters outside of Germany and distributed many specialized news services (including those for finance, sports, and editorials) within the country.

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However, WTB was effectively closed in 1933 by the new Nazi regime and replaced by the government-controlled Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro. With its increasingly overt propaganda content, the new agency helped finalize the demise of The Ring cartel with Havas and Reuters.