DEUBEL, STEFAN - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

DEUBEL, STEFAN (26 Sept. 1914 - 25 Sept. 1997) provided food for mind and body as proprietor of a sausage shop and a newspaper in Cleveland's German-American community (see GERMANS). A native of Grossprobstdorf, Romania, he was the son of Stefan and Susanne Siewerth Deubel. After learning the baking trade in his uncle's bakery, he left Romania in 1939 and found employment in the chemical industry in Berlin. In 1942 he established his own business as a manufacturer of baking ingredients and food processing materials in Berlin and other German cities. He married Hella Groth of Leipzig in 1945 but was dispossessed of both home and business by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949. Emigrating to the United States in 1951, he arrived in Cleveland and went to work in the LAUB BAKING CO. He soon left to establish an import specialty delicatessen and the Wintergarten Restaurant downtown. When Cleveland's daily German newspaper, the WAECHTER UND ANZEIGER, suspended publication in 1954, Deubel purchased its assets and revived it as a weekly later that year. Teaching himself the printing trade, he did most of the work himself, from typesetting to editorials, while his wife handled the books. They helped support the newspaper by opening a sausage shop and shoe store in front of the plant on Lorain Avenue, where they also lived upstairs. As the German-American press declined generally throughout the country, Deubel took on printing the Plattdeutsche Post for New York City and the nationally circulated Saxon News Volksblatt. He also assumed management of the Foreign Language Newspaper service, an advertising agency for the Ethnic press. Deubel was active in civic and political affairs, sponsoring an annual Saxon Ball for 23 years and serving on the CLEVELAND-CUYAHOGA COUNTY PORT AUTHORITY For 6 years he hosted a German variety program, the "Old Country Show," on WEWS (Channel 5). Because of declining health, he gave up the struggle to keep the Waechter und Anzeiger afloat in 1989. Survived by his wife and sons Bernard and George, he died in Cleveland, but his remains are buried in the family plot in Leipzig.

J.V.

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