About Hersfelder Zeitung

Hersfelder Zeitung

The Hersfelder Zeitung (HZ) is a German daily newspaper published in Bad Hersfeld, Hesse, and ranks among the oldest still-published newspapers in the German language. Its first edition appeared on 2 March 1763, giving the paper a publishing history of more than 260 years; it is counted among the 18 oldest newspapers in the world. The paper is published by the Hoehl-Druck GmbH + Co and appears daily with a sold circulation of around 9,906 copies in the district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg. The editor-in-chief is Kai A. Struthoff, and the managing director is Markus Pfromm. The paper is printed at the publishing house of the Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine in Kassel, and its national content comes from the HNA editorial team in Kassel. The paper's digital home is its website at hersfelder-zeitung.de.

Overview

The Hersfelder Zeitung is published daily as a subscription daily for the district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg in northeastern Hesse. Its distribution area covers Bad Hersfeld, the festival town known for the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele in the monastery ruins, Bebra, Heringen, Rotenburg an der Fulda and the neighbouring communities of Eiterfeld and Oberaula, a region shaped by the Fulda valley, the Knüll hills and the former inner-German border. The paper reaches a sold circulation of 9,906 copies, a decline from 14,072 copies in 2011 that mirrors the structural pressures on the German regional press.

The paper's extraordinary age gives it a unique position: founded in 1763, it has appeared continuously through the Enlightenment, the Napoleonic era, the German Empire, two world wars and the post-war period. Few newspapers worldwide can claim such continuity, and the Hersfelder Zeitung's 260-year history is central to its identity and its authority in the region. The paper is printed today at the Verlag Dierichs GmbH & Co. KG in Kassel, the publishing house of the Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine (HNA), and its national content comes from the HNA editorial team in Kassel; only the editorial team for regional topics remains in Bad Hersfeld.

The audience of the Hersfelder Zeitung is the population of the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district: households that value a daily paper with more than two and a half centuries of presence in the region. The paper's readers include the festival town's cultural audience, the logistics and industrial employees of the region, and the rural communities of the Knüll and the Fulda valley.

History

The first edition of the Hersfelder Zeitung appeared on 2 March 1763, in the final year of the Seven Years' War, as a newspaper for the town of Hersfeld in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. The paper's founding places it among the oldest German-language newspapers still in publication, alongside the Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung of 1705, the Pfälzischer Merkur of 1713, the Hanauer Anzeiger of 1725 and the Bremer Nachrichten of 1743. Across 260 years the paper chronicled Hersfeld's history: the Napoleonic period, the German Empire, the First World War, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, during which the paper appeared with a circulation of around 5,800 copies in the Hersfeld district, the Second World War and the post-war reconstruction.

The modern era of the paper has been shaped by its integration into larger publishing structures. The paper is printed at the Verlag Dierichs GmbH & Co. KG in Kassel, the publishing house of the HNA, and its national content has come from the HNA editorial team in Kassel. Since the Dierichs publishing house was taken over by Dirk Ippen in 2002, the paper's content has come from his publishing group; only the regional editorial team remains in Bad Hersfeld. The paper cooperates in a tariff community with the HNA in Kassel, the Mitteldeutsche Presse in Fulda and the Thüringer Presse in Suhl.

The Hersfelder Zeitung thus represents a common fate of Germany's historic local papers: a centuries-old title with an independent editorial tradition, now produced within the structures of a larger media group, with the local newsroom in Bad Hersfeld preserving the paper's regional identity. The twice-weekly free paper Kreisanzeiger, published since 1980, belongs to the same publishing group since 2002, complementing the daily with household-distributed advertising journalism.

Coverage and Content

The Hersfelder Zeitung covers the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district with the full programme of a regional daily. The local section reports from the town councils and the district administration, the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele and the year-round cultural life of the festival town, urban development, the regional economy with the logistics industry along the A4 and A7 motorways, schools and education, health care, the police blotter and court reporting, club and association life, church news, and local sport including the Kassel Huskies ice hockey and MT Melsungen handball covered in the sports section. The app's content listing highlights local news from Bad Hersfeld, Bebra, Heringen, Rotenburg an der Fulda, Eiterfeld and Oberaula alongside political news from Germany, Europe and the world, current sports news, film, television and series coverage, and consumer tips.

The national content comes from the HNA editorial team in Kassel, covering Hessian state politics, German federal politics, international news, the economy, culture and sport. Weekend editions carry expanded magazine content. The division between the Kassel-produced national sections and the Bad Hersfeld-produced local pages gives readers a complete daily newspaper: the breadth of a large regional newsroom combined with the proximity of journalists who work in Bad Hersfeld itself.

Advertising in the Hersfelder Zeitung reaches households across the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district precisely, making the paper an important medium for local retailers, craftsmen, service providers, the real-estate market and job advertisements. The free Kreisanzeiger extends the group's advertising reach to every household in the district.

Organization and Ownership

The Hersfelder Zeitung is published by the Hoehl-Druck GmbH + Co in Bad Hersfeld. The editor-in-chief is Kai A. Struthoff, and the managing director is Markus Pfromm. The paper is printed at the Verlag Dierichs GmbH & Co. KG in Kassel, the publishing house of the Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine, which has belonged to the publishing group of Dirk Ippen since 2002. The national content is produced by the HNA editorial team in Kassel, while the regional editorial team remains in Bad Hersfeld.

The paper is distributed to subscribers daily across the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district. The subscription model dominates sales, with a sold circulation of around 9,906 copies. The paper cooperates in a tariff community with the HNA in Kassel, the Mitteldeutsche Presse in Fulda and the Thüringer Presse in Suhl. Publicly available sources used for this profile do not disclose further ownership details for the Hoehl-Druck publishing house; those details are therefore not stated here. The Bad Hersfeld newsroom retains editorial responsibility for the regional pages that define the paper's identity as the historic daily of the festival town.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Hersfelder Zeitung is its website at hersfelder-zeitung.de, which presents current news, headlines and background information from the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district. The paper also offers a mobile app that arranges local news, reports from Bad Hersfeld, Bebra, Heringen, Rotenburg an der Fulda, Eiterfeld and Oberaula, political news from Germany, Europe and the world, sports news, film and television coverage and consumer tips clearly on smartphones and tablets. The app offers a personalized homepage, a news ticker, topic categories, a watch list for saved articles, article sharing, push notifications and a profile area with links to the subscription service, the e-paper, advertisements, obituaries and special topics.

The e-paper edition reproduces the printed paper page for page for digital reading. The portal operates on the paid-content model: full article texts are generally reserved for subscribers. On social media, the paper's channels share local headlines from the district and engage with readers. For a paper with 260 years of history, digital channels serve both longtime subscribers who prefer to read on their phones and former residents who have moved away from the Hersfeld region but want to stay connected to their home district. The printed Hersfelder Zeitung remains the core product, carrying forward one of the oldest publishing traditions in the German language.