![Fr-depot-ffm002](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Fr-depot-ffm002.jpg)
The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' (FR) is a German daily newspaper, based in
Frankfurt am Main
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 its na ...
. It is published every day but Sunday as a city, two regional and one nationwide issues and offers an online edition (see link below) as well as an e-paper. Local major competitors are the conservative-liberal ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
'' (FAZ), the local edition of the conservative tabloid ''
Bild'', the best-selling newspaper in Europe, and the smaller local conservative ''
Frankfurter Neue Presse
The ''Frankfurter Neue Presse'' (FNP) is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main and focused on local and regional topics.
History
The FNP was founded on 15 April 1946 under a license of the American military government. It was lic ...
''. The ''Rundschau's'' layout is modern and its editorial stance is
social liberal
Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
. It holds that "independence,
social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...
and fairness" underlie its journalism.
Frankfurter Rundschau Druck and Verlagshaus GmbH filed for bankruptcy on 12 November 2012. Then the paper was acquired by ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' and Frankfurter Societät (publisher of the ''Frankfurter Neue Presse'') in 2013, by taking over just 28 full-time journalists. The FR editorial board continued to be bound by the legacy of
Karl Gerold Karl may refer to:
People
* Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name
* Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne
* Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer
* Karl of Austria, last Austri ...
and the commitment to a "left-liberal" political line, and was integrated in the national and international editorial and correspondents network of the
DuMont Mediengruppe, the former majority owners. The
private foundation managing Karl Gerold's legacy still owns 10% of the shares. But all commercial activity of the paper, printing, selling advertisement and distribution was put in the hands of the Frankfurter Societät. The FR printing enterprise was closed. The contracts for printing
BILD-Zeitung
''Bild'' (or ''Bild-Zeitung'', ; ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' ("''Bild on Sunday''") is published instead, which ...
and other papers went from the FR's printshop to the FAZ's ''Societätsdruckerei''.
On 1 April 2018, the Frankfurter Societät's ninety per-cent share was sold to Zeitungsholding Hessen, an investment vehicle of the publisher
Dirk Ippen. In October 2021, Ippen blocked the publication by the Franfurter Rundschau of an investigative report on accusations of abuse of power made against former Bild editor,
Julian Reichelt
Julian Reichelt (born 15 June 1980) is a German tabloid journalist. From February 2017 to October 2021, he was chairman of the editors-in-chief and editor-in-chief digital of '' Bild'', Germany's largest and highest-circulation tabloid. Reichel ...
.
History and profile
![Mk Frankfurt Rundschauhaus 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Mk_Frankfurt_Rundschauhaus_2.jpg)
The ''Rundschau'' published its first issue on 1 August 1945 shortly after the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
in Europe. It was the first newspaper published in the
US sector in occupied Germany and the third newspaper in
post-war Germany
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
. The licence was handed over to the first team of editors consisting of Emil Carlebach, Hans Etzkorn, Wilhelm Karl Gerst, Otto Grossmann, Wilhelm Knothe, Paul Rodemann and Arno Rudert, a progressive think-tank of
social democrats
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...
,
political Catholics and
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, who had spent years in the resistance and
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
or in exile. With the coming of the
Cold War, the American occupation authority forced all communist members of the editorial team to leave the paper two years later. In 1949 only Arno Rudert and Karl Gerold were left from the founding team. Gerold left SPD in the same year, to demonstrate his political independence.
Research by the Rundschau in the 1960s revealed, among other things, initiated the
Auschwitz trial
The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Poland's Supreme National Tribunal tried forty former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947.
The best-known defendants were Arthur Lie ...
s in Germany. At the end of the 1960s, the Frankfurter Rundschau uncovered the so-called
HS-30 scandal. The German government only procured the HS-30 armored personnel carrier for the
Bundeswehr
The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...
because bribes had been paid to several responsible persons and illegal payments had been made to the
CDU.
On 30 May 2007 the ''Rundschau'' changed its format to the award-winning smaller
tabloid size.
The paper was awarded the European Newspaper of the Year in the category of judges' special recognition by the European Newspaper Congress in 2011.
In the
2013 elections
The following elections were occurred in the year 2013.
Asia
* 2013 Armenian local elections 26 May, 17 November, and 8 December 2013
* 2013 Armenian presidential election 18 February 2013
* 2013 Bangladeshi presidential election 22 April 2013 ...
the magazine was among the supporters of the
Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The 1993 circulation of the paper was 189,000 copies.
In the first quarter of 2015, the newspaper boasted a circulation of around 70,000 copies.
In 2019, the newspaper published an editorial titled "The Eternal Netanyahu" about
Prime Minister of Israel
The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
. The name evoked a
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
film titled
''The Eternal Jew''. Ulf Poschardt, editor-in-chief of German newspaper ''
Die Welt
''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE.
''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter All ...
'', tweeted a condemnation of the ''Frankfurter Rundschau'', as did a top journalist for German newspaper ''
Bild''. The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' claimed that the association was accidental.
Restructuring
In 2003, the paper had financial difficulties and was supported by a guarantee from the federal state of
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Dar ...
. In May 2004 the (DDVG), owned by the SPD, acquired 90 percent of the shares of the Druck- und Verlagshaus Frankfurt am Main (DuV), the publisher of the FR until then. The social democrats emphasized that they wanted to assure the future of one of the few left-liberal daily newspapers in Germany and asserted they would not exert influence on the articles. The social democrats also announced that they wanted to reduce their share to under 50 percent until 2006. In order to save the paper from insolvency, the DDVG soon drastically cut back expenditures. By means of
dismissals and outsourcing, the number of employees shrank within the last three years from 1700 to 750.
Amid speculation on DDVG's complaints about too friendly articles on the new left party
Die Linke and its plan to sell the majority of its shares (see article in the newspaper ''
Junge Welt
''Junge Welt'' (English: ''Young World'', stylized in its logo as ''junge Welt'') is a German daily newspaper, published in Berlin. The jW describes itself as a left-wing and Marxist newspaper. German authorities categorize it as a far-left medi ...
'' from 30 August 2007) Wolfgang Storz's term as editor-in-chief ended abruptly on 16 May 2006. The appointed next editor-in-chief was Uwe Vorkötter (effective 1 July 2006). Only a few days later, on 18 July 2007, the DDVG announced that it would sell 50 percent plus one share to the independent publishing company
M. DuMont Schauberg based in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, Germany. Today, DuMont Schauberg holds 50 percent plus one share, the DDVG owns 40 percent and the Karl-Gerold-Foundation holds 10 percent of the newspaper.
Literature
* Emil Carlebach: "Zensur ohne Schere, Die Gründerjahre der 'Frankfurter Rundschau' 1945/47" (English: "Censorship without scissors, The founding years of the 'Frankfurter Rundschau' 1945/47". Frankfurt 1985,
* Wolf Gunter Brügmann : "1968 – 2008. Vom Aufstieg und Niedergang der Frankfurter Rundschau" ("1968 – 2008: The rise and fall of the Frankfurter Rundschau")
Notes
Sources
European Newspaper Award 2007
;German links
Report in the newspaper Junge Welt from 13 May 2008
External links
*
{{Authority control
1945 establishments in Germany
German-language newspapers
Daily newspapers published in Germany
Mass media in Frankfurt
Newspapers established in 1945
German-language websites