founded an
antiquarian bookshop in Leipzig in 1879.
Leo Salomon Jolowicz (born 12 August 1868 in Posen; died 7 June 1940 in Leipzig) took over the bookshop in 1898 and turned it into the largest and best-known scientific antiquarian bookshop in Germany. On 4 April 1906, Jolowicz then founded the with
Gustav Rothschild (
procurator at the Fock bookshop) und
Paul Werthauer, who left in 1914 already. A decade after being founded, the antiquarian bookshop Fock had already opened department stores in New York and San Francisco, later also in Tokyo. In 1991, the renowned Buchhandlung Mayer & Müller in Berlin, who also had a scientific program and distributed many American scientific journals, was added to the portfolio. The C. F. Winter'sche Verlagshandlung in Leipzig followed in 1923. The publishing house became one of the best-known scientific publishers, publishing well-known journals such as the (Journal of physical chemistry, 1887 introduced by
Wilhelm Ostwald and
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, taken over from
Verlag Wilhelm Engelmann in Leipzig, in 1920), the (Handbook of experimental physics) by and
Wilhelm Wien (26 volumes with a total of pages and images, 1926 to 1937, meant as competitor to by
Springer-Verlag), the (Handbook of radiology) (6 volumes, 1913 to 1934), (Rabenhorst's cryptogam flora), (Bronn's classes and orders of the animal kingdom), (Results of enzyme research) and (Results of vitamin and hormone research). Among many others, the list of authors included
Wilhelm Ostwald (i.e. , since 1918),
Svante Arrhenius (, 1906),
Pierre Curie and
Marie Curie,
William Ramsay,
Arnold Sommerfeld (Lectures on theoretical physics) und
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. From 1921, also published a well-known series of new editions of scientific classics (taken over from Verlag Wilhelm Engelmann in 1919). Other journals taken over from Engelmann were (founded in 1849, oldest German zoological journal, taken over in 1923), (founded in 1878, taken over in 1924) and (founded in 1876, taken over in 1924). The publisher also took over in 1926 (founded in 1876 by Buchhandlung Gustav Fock, before 1918 issued by Engelmann), (founded in 1904 by Verlag W. Klinckhardt, taken over in 1927), the periodical (founded in 1859 by in Frankfurt am Main, and in Frankfurt am Main, taken over in 1929), and in 1930 (, founded in 1907, originally by in Leipzig, then issued by M. Krayn in Hamburg). The successors of the publishing house in West and East Germany continued this tradition. For the most part Jolowicz published natural sciences, medicine and mathematics, but also
Hebraica and
Judaica. Leo Jolowicz's son-in-law
Kurt Jacoby (born 1893 in Insterburg; died August 1968 in New York) was also involved in the expansion of the publishing house. He had previously worked for and became deputy manager and another owner at in 1923. In 1930, Jolowicz's son Walter Jolowicz (1908–1996, who later called himself
Walter J. Johnson after emigrating to the USA) joined the business as well. In the early 1930s, the publishing house published 26 journals. Some 70% of the revenue were generated in foreign markets, which helped to solidify the business despite decreasing profits. In 1933, had a revenue of 1 million Reichsmark and a profit of 337,000 Reichsmark. When the
National Socialists came to power, the publishing house was "
aryanized" (Jolowicz was a Jew) and Jolowicz was gradually pushed out of the business. In 1937, he finally left the publishing house. He applied for emigration in 1939, but was unable to leave Germany and died in 1940, possibly by suicide. His son Walter and his son-in-law Kurt Jacoby were sent to a
concentration camp in 1938, but were then able to leave Germany and emigrated via Russia, Japan and other countries to New York, USA, where they arrived in 1941 and 1942, respectively, and founded the publishing house
Academic Press. Other emigrants like and former members of like
Erich Simon Proskauer (1903–1991) had already founded in New York in 1940. The Dutch (1913–1995), who had absolved his training at since 1934, joined the new publishing house (later part of
Elsevier) in 1936 to build it up following 's model.
Johannes Geest and
Felix Portig followed Jolowicz as publishing directors. In 1940, however, their names were soon replaced by
Walter Becker and
Willy Erler in the commercial register. Formally, they were a
limited partnership (KG) as . The book inventory of Gustav Fock GmbH burned down in a bomb attack on Leipzig on 4 December 1943. After
World War II, Geest and Portig re-established the in the
Soviet occupation zone on 25 February 1947, and later received a renewed license from East Germany on 26 October 1951. Johannes Geest died in 1947 and his heiress Marianne Lotze took over the shares as a . After Portig's death in January 1953 and the "" of Lotze, the majority of the shares in the KG were taken over by the state. In 1959, these were transferred to
VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag. From 1964 onwards, the was effectively affiliated to the
B. G. Teubner Verlag as far as publishing activities were concerned. Together, they continued to publish and the series of biographies of important scientists. In addition, also published numerous university textbooks in the GDR (such as the (Basic plan of inorganic chemistry) by a collective of authors, which reached a circulation of ). The remaining heiress Gertrud Margarete Portig was pushed out of the company entirely by 1972 when the publishing house became the property of VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag. However, the publishing programs of Gustav Fischer Verlag and were quite different. Newly founded in December 1953 as a consequence of East-Germany's occupation of the publishing house in Leipzig, there was another in
Frankfurt am Main aiming as the original publisher's successor in West Germany. It was later situated in Wiesbaden and since 1975 owned by the publisher family Steiner. It existed until 1983. After the
German reunification, the East-German fell to the
Treuhandanstalt, which closed the publishing house in 1991. Surviving archive material of the publisher is preserved in the , under inventory . == Other publishers ==