Johann Friedrich Unger

Who was Johann Friedrich Unger?

Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Unger was a German printer and publisher.

He was the fifth son of the printer Johann Georg Unger and his wife Susanna Katharine. He took on an apprenticeship at the print shop of the Oberhof printer Georg Jacob Decker. In 1779 Unger requested a print shop for himself and in January 1780 he was granted one. Later, he expanded it to a publishing bookseller, in which he published works by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Schleiermacher as well as August and Friedrich Schlegel.

From 1784 onward he attempted repeatedly to gain approval to publish what would have been Berlin’s first daily newspaper. His attempts were rejected as the two existing newspapers in Berlin were found to be sufficient and another newspaper would overload the censors. In 1802 Unger nonetheless became co-owner of the Vossische Zeitung.

In 1793, he invented the "Unger-Fraktur", a type of Fraktur.