About Sachsenheimer Zeitung

Sachsenheimer Zeitung

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung is the regional daily newspaper for Sachsenheim and the surrounding area in the Ludwigsburg district of Baden-Württemberg, published as one of three editions of the Bietigheimer Zeitung. Appearing on working days, the paper covers the town of Sachsenheim — with its districts Großsachsenheim, Kleinsachsenheim, Hohenhaslach, Ochsenbach, Spielberg and Häfnerhaslach — and the neighbouring communities with local reporting produced for the edition, while the national and regional pages come from the Südwest Presse's mantle network in Ulm. Together with the Bietigheimer Zeitung and the Bönnigheimer Zeitung, the three editions sell around 7,600 copies.

Overview

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung appears on working days in Sachsenheim, the town in the western Ludwigsburg district formed in the municipal reforms from the formerly independent communities of Großsachsenheim, Kleinsachsenheim, Hohenhaslach, Ochsenbach, Spielberg and Häfnerhaslach. The paper is one of three editions published by the Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft Bietigheim mbH of Bietigheim-Bissingen: the Bietigheimer Zeitung for Bietigheim-Bissingen, the Bönnigheimer Zeitung for Bönnigheim and the Sachsenheimer Zeitung for Sachsenheim — all in the Ludwigsburg district, all sharing the same mantle and differing in their local sections.

The three editions belong to the editorial mantle network (Mantelverbund) of the Südwest Presse in Ulm: the national and international pages, the business section, culture and sport come from the SWP's central newsroom, while the local pages are produced by the Bietigheim publishing house's editorial team. The papers are also members of the Anzeigengemeinschaft Stuttgart, the advertising combine that includes the Stuttgarter Zeitung, Der Teckbote and the Nürtinger Zeitung. With 7,597 sold copies for the three editions together (IVW, 3rd quarter of 2025) — down 47.4 percent since 1998 — the papers are small but firmly established titles in the commuter belt between Stuttgart, Heilbronn and Ludwigsburg.

The readership is the classic audience of the suburban local press: families, commuters to Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg, craftsmen, local officials and club members in a region where the daily newspaper remains the medium of community life. Sachsenheim's location — on the edge of the Stromberg-Heuchelberg nature park, between the industrial centres of the Neckar valley and the wine villages of the Zabergäu — gives the paper a mixed reporting beat: suburban development and transport on the one hand, wine-growing villages and traditional festivals on the other.

History

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung's history is that of the Bietigheimer Zeitung publishing house, whose three editions — Bietigheim, Bönnigheim and Sachsenheim — have long served the central Ludwigsburg district. The Bietigheimer Zeitung established itself as the daily newspaper of the Bietigheim area, and the Sachsenheim edition extended its coverage to the town formed in the 1970s municipal reforms, preserving the local identity of the formerly independent villages under the Sachsenheimer Zeitung masthead.

The decisive structural development was the paper's integration into the Südwest Presse's mantle network: the Bietigheim papers take their national pages from the SWP in Ulm — one of Baden-Württemberg's large regional newspapers, founded in 1946 as the Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung and renamed in 1968 — while producing their own local sections. In 2006 the Neue Pressegesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, the SWP's publishing company, acquired a minority stake in the Bietigheimer Zeitung; on 1 January 2019 that stake passed to the Stuttgarter Zeitung Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, part of the Südwestdeutsche Medien Holding (SWMH). In 2025 the SWMH in turn sold its 82 percent stake in the Medienholding Süd — and with it the Stuttgarter Zeitung Verlagsgesellschaft's holding — to the Neue Pressegesellschaft, bringing the Bietigheim papers into the ownership sphere of the SWP's publisher.

The ownership changes reflect the concentration of the Baden-Württemberg press: the Neue Pressegesellschaft of Ulm — the publisher of the Südwest Presse, co-owned by the Ebner Pressegesellschaft and the ZVD Mediengesellschaft, and since 2025 also the owner of the Stuttgarter Zeitung, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten and the Schwarzwälder Bote via the Medienholding Süd acquisition — has become the dominant newspaper house of the south-west. The Sachsenheimer Zeitung, as an edition of the Bietigheim papers, is part of this consolidation: its local identity preserved in the masthead, its journalism produced within the SWP's network.

Coverage and Content

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung's local pages cover Sachsenheim and the surrounding area in depth: the town's six districts — Großsachsenheim and Kleinsachsenheim, Hohenhaslach, Ochsenbach, Spielberg and Häfnerhaslach — each with its own village identity, the town council, the local schools and kindergartens, the police and court reports, the volunteer fire brigades, the church parishes, and the dense network of clubs and associations, from sports clubs and music societies to the wine-growing cooperatives of the Stromberg villages. The paper's reporting on suburban development — new housing areas, transport links to Stuttgart, the S-Bahn and regional rail — reflects Sachsenheim's position in the Stuttgart commuter belt.

The mantle pages from the Südwest Presse provide the wider context: Baden-Württemberg state politics from Stuttgart, national and international news, the business section, culture and the sports pages with their coverage of VfB Stuttgart and the region's professional sport. The combination is the classic German regional newspaper formula: the local edition for identity and community, the SWP mantle for the world beyond the district. Special editions mark the region's calendar: the wine festivals of the Stromberg villages, the traditional markets, the Christmas markets and the club anniversaries. The paper also serves as a medium for the area's official notices, and its family notices make it the chronicle of the Sachsenheim area's social life.

Organization and Ownership

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung is published by the Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft Bietigheim mbH of Bietigheim-Bissingen, as one of the publishing house's three editions alongside the Bietigheimer Zeitung and the Bönnigheimer Zeitung. The publishing house's editor-in-chief is Claudia Mocek, and its publisher (Herausgeber) is Manfred Gläser, with Stefan Gläser as Geschäftsführer. The papers belong to the editorial mantle network of the Südwest Presse in Ulm and to the Anzeigengemeinschaft Stuttgart advertising combine.

The ownership history traces the consolidation of the south-west German press: from the Neue Pressegesellschaft's 2006 minority stake, through the Stuttgarter Zeitung Verlagsgesellschaft's holding from 2019, to the 2025 sale of the SWMH's Medienholding Süd stake to the Neue Pressegesellschaft — the SWP's publisher, whose editor-in-chief is Ulrich Becker. The Sachsenheimer Zeitung's local editorial team works within the Bietigheim publishing house's organization, producing the edition's local pages, while the mantle pages come from Ulm. Advertising sales are handled within the group's structures, with the three editions' combined reach of 7,597 sold copies forming the basis of the papers' media data.

Digital Presence

The Sachsenheimer Zeitung's digital home is within the Bietigheimer Zeitung's online platform, bietigheimerzeitung.de, and the wider digital network of the Südwest Presse group at swp.de — one of the most visited regional news portals in Baden-Württemberg. The platforms carry the day's news from the Ludwigsburg district and the SWP's distribution area, including the Sachsenheim edition's local reporting, alongside the central newsroom's regional, national and international coverage. Readers can access the paper as an e-paper — the digital replica of the printed edition — and the portals offer breaking news, photo galleries, videos and interactive features.

The SWP group's digital strategy serves all its network titles: the local papers feed their reporting into the shared portals, while the portals' reach — far beyond the print circulations — gives the Sachsenheimer Zeitung's local journalism an audience across the Stuttgart region and beyond. Social media channels distribute the day's local stories, and the papers' journalists use the digital platforms for reader interaction. For a small suburban edition, the digital platforms are increasingly the growth story: the e-paper preserves the complete local edition in digital form, and the online portals keep the Sachsenheimer Zeitung present in the digital media habits of the commuter belt — including the Stuttgart commuters who read their home town's news on the train.