The history of German journalism dates to the 16th century. Germany invented printing, and produced its first newspapers in the 16th century. However, Germany was divided into so many competing states that before unification in 1871, no newspaper played a dominant role.

Early developments

Merchants in

early modern Europe Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the late 15th century to the late 18th century. Histor ...

exchanged financial and commercial news, and some started regular newsletters for their clients. One example of this type of merchant was the 16th-century German financiar,

Fugger The House of Fugger () is a German upper bourgeois family that was historically a prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and ven ...

. He not only received business news from his correspondents, but also sensationalist and gossip news as well. It is evident in Fugger's correspondence with his network that fiction and fact were both significant parts of early news publications. 16th century Germany also saw subscription-based, handwritten news. Those who subscribed to these publications were generally low-level government officials and also merchants. They could not afford other types of news publications, but had enough money to pay for a subscription, which was still expensive for the time. In the 16th and 17th century, there appeared numerous printed news sheets summarizing accounts of battles, treaties, kings, epidemics, and special events. Early forms of news periodicals were the so-called ''

Messrelationen A Messrelation (IPA: /ˈmɛsʀɛlaˌt͡si̯oːn/, Early Modern German for 'trade fair report') was a print published in the 16th to 18th century for the book fairs in Frankfurt and Leipzig (the largest in Europe at their time) which reported news ...

'' ("trade fair reports") which were compiled twice a year, for the large book fairs in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

and

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

respectively, starting in the 1580s. In 1609

Johann Carolus Johann Carolus (26 March 1575 − 15 August 1634) was a German publisher of the first newspaper, called ''Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien'' (Account of all distinguished and commemorable stories). The ''Relation'' is re ...

published the first short-interval regular newspaper in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

, comprising brief news bulletins. By the 1620s, numerous major cities had newspapers of 4 to 8 pages appearing at irregular intervals; all were strictly censored. The first daily newspaper appeared in 1660 in Leipzig.

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

increasingly became the largest and most dominant of the German states, but it had weak newspapers that were kept under very tight control. Advertising was forbidden, and budgets were very small. The term newspaper became common in the 17th century. However, in Germany, publications that we would today consider to be newspaper publications, were appearing as early as the 16th century. They were discernibly newspapers for the following reasons: they were printed, dated, appeared at regular and frequent publication intervals, and included a variety of news items (unlike single item news mentioned above). The first newspaper according to modern definitions was the ''Strasbourg Relation'', in the early 17th century. German newspapers, like avisis, were organized by the location from which they came, and by date. They differed from avisis in that they employed a distinct and highly illustrated

title page The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a w ...

, and they applied an overall date to each issue. The emergence of the new media branch was based on the spread of the printing press from which the publishing press derives its name. Historian Johannes Weber says, "At the same time, then, as the printing press in the physical, technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was born. The German-language ''Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien'', printed from 1605 onwards by

in Strasbourg, was the first newspaper.

German Confederation, 1815–1867

A large number of newspapers and magazines flourished. A typical small city had one or two newspapers; Berlin and Leipzig had dozens. The audience was limited to perhaps five percent of the adult men, chiefly from the aristocratic and middle classes, who followed politics. Liberal papers outnumbered conservative ones by a wide margin. Foreign governments bribed editors to guarantee a favorable image. Censorship was strict, and the government issued the political news they were supposed to report. After 1871, strict press laws were used by Bismarck to shut down the Socialist, and to threaten hostile editors. There were no national newspapers. Editors focused on political commentary, but also included a nonpolitical cultural page, focused on the arts and high culture. Especially popular was the serialized novel, with a new chapter every week. Magazines were politically more influential, and attracted the leading intellectuals as authors.

Weimar Republic

The republic's constitution along with other social forces and the earlier Reich press law of 1874 gave rise to a dispersed, energetic and pluralistic press with a wide range of political opinion after the Great War. The ' and the ' established consumer bases decades earlier. Wire news service and newspaper commercial lending by Ruhr industrial interests sought to influence editorial opinion prior to the Great War and during the republic.

1945–1990

In 1945 the occupying powers took over all newspapers in Germany and purged them of Nazi influence. The American occupation headquarters, the

Office of Military Government, United States The Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS; german: Amt der Militärregierung für Deutschland (U.S.)) was the United States military-established government created shortly after the end of hostilities in occupied Germany in World W ...

(OMGUS) began its own newspaper based in Munich, ''

Die Neue Zeitung ''Die Neue Zeitung'' (''"The New Times"'', abbreviated ''NZ'') was a newspaper published in the American Occupation Zone of Germany after the Second World War. It was comparable to the daily newspaper ''Die Welt'' in the British Occupation Zone ...

''. It was edited by German and Jewish émigrés who fled to the United States before the war. Its mission was to encourage democracy by exposing Germans to how American culture operated. The paper was filled with details on American sports, politics, business, Hollywood, and fashions, as well as international affairs.Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht, "Art is democracy and democracy is art: Culture, propaganda, and the Neue Zeitung in Germany." ''Diplomatic History'' (1999) 23#1 pp. 21–43

Early developments

German Confederation, 1815–1867

Weimar Republic

1945–1990

See also

Notes

Further reading