About Solinger Morgenpost

Solinger Morgenpost

The Solinger Morgenpost is the Solingen local edition of the Rheinische Post, the Düsseldorf-based regional daily serving the Lower Rhine and the Bergisches Land in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Published by the Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellschaft, it appears Monday to Saturday with local pages dedicated to Solingen, the historic "blade city", and the overregional sections produced by the Rheinische Post's central newsroom in Düsseldorf. The paper is published under the Solinger Morgenpost title only in Solingen; in other parts of the Bergisches Land it appears as the Bergische Morgenpost, and in the Rhein-Kreis Neuss as the Neuß-Grevenbroicher Zeitung. Its content appears on the rp-online.de portal.

Overview

The Solinger Morgenpost is one of the local editions of the Rheinische Post, Germany's second-largest regional daily after the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, with a sold circulation of around 179,000 copies. The Rheinische Post's circulation area covers the Lower Rhine and parts of the Bergisches Land, and its local editions carry distinct titles for their sub-regions: the Solinger Morgenpost for Solingen, the Bergische Morgenpost for Remscheid and the surrounding Bergisches Land, and the Neuß-Grevenbroicher Zeitung for the Rhein-Kreis Neuss. The paper appears in the Rhenish format, six days a week, and is available in print, as an e-paper, and through the rp-online.de portal.

Solingen is a city of around one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants in the Bergisches Land, world-famous for its blade and cutlery industry, which has shaped the city's identity for more than six centuries. The Solinger Morgenpost's circulation area covers the city and its districts, from the historic old towns of Solingen, Ohligs, Wald, Gräfrath and Höhscheid to the surrounding Bergisch landscape. The paper's local editorial office is at Eiland 19-21 in Solingen. Its readership consists mainly of subscribers in the blade city who rely on it for local politics, community life and the regional news of the Düsseldorf area.

History

The Rheinische Post was founded on 2 March 1946, nine months after the end of the Second World War, under licence from the British military government. Its founders were the newspaper publisher Anton Betz, the politician Karl Arnold and the lawyer Erich Wenderoth, who campaigned for a political, economic and moral new beginning. From its first issue the paper stood for democracy, freedom and human dignity, and in 1970 the Droste family joined the publishing house; the descendants of the founding Betz, Droste and Wenderoth families remain the paper's publishers to this day.

The Solinger Morgenpost emerged as the Rheinische Post's edition for Solingen, serving a city whose blade industry gave it worldwide renown. The paper chronicled Solingen's post-war reconstruction, the modernisation of the cutlery industry, and the city's development into a major centre of the Bergisches Land. The Rheinische Post grew into one of Germany's most cited regional newspapers, known as an authors' paper with eighty percent of its articles written by its own journalists. In 2014 the paper began cooperating with the Neue Ruhr Zeitung, and it supplies content to the Westdeutsche Zeitung and the Bocholter-Borkener Volksblatt. The 75th anniversary edition in April 2021 comprised 160 pages, underlining the paper's standing.

Coverage and Content

The Solinger Morgenpost's local pages cover Solingen and its districts with dedicated reporting on the blade city. Municipal politics is a central beat, with coverage of the Solingen town council, the district politics of the region, and the planning issues of a major Bergisch city. Economic reporting follows the fortunes of the cutlery and blade industry, the manufacturing companies of the Bergisches Land, and the structural issues of a traditional industrial city. The paper covers the cultural life of Solingen, from the historic Gräfrath old town and the Müngsten Bridge, Germany's highest railway bridge, to the museums and festivals of the blade city.

Club and association life receives extensive coverage, as do local sports and school topics. The Rheinische Post's central newsroom in Düsseldorf supplies the overregional sections: North Rhine-Westphalian state politics, national news from the Berlin parliamentary office, international reporting from correspondents in Washington, London, Brussels and Paris, business, culture and sports. The paper is considered one of Germany's most cited regional newspapers, reflecting the quality of its journalism. Service elements such as event calendars, obituaries, family announcements and consumer advice complete the daily offering.

Organization and Ownership

The Solinger Morgenpost is published by the Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellschaft mbH in Düsseldorf, part of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe. The publishing house is owned by the descendants of the founding families Betz, Droste and Wenderoth, who serve as the paper's publishers: Florian Merz-Betz, Martin Ebel, Tilman Droste and Esther Betz as honorary publisher. The managing directors are Johannes Werle, Hans Peter Bork and Matthias Körner. The paper's editor-in-chief is Moritz Döbler, who leads the central newsroom in Düsseldorf where topics are analysed, evaluated and prepared for the print and online editions.

The Solinger Morgenpost maintains its own local editorial office at Eiland 19-21 in Solingen, where local editors produce the blade city's pages and serve as the point of contact for readers, clubs, institutions and advertisers. The e-paper edition of the Solinger Morgenpost is available through the iKiosk platform, giving subscribers the complete printed edition in digital form alongside the continuously updated content of the rp-online.de portal. Production is centralised at the group's printing facilities, and distribution, subscription management and advertising sales are handled through the group's shared services. The rp-online.de portal, one of Germany's leading regional news portals, provides the digital infrastructure for all the paper's editions.

Readership and Market Position

The Solinger Morgenpost operates within the Rheinische Post's strong market position as Germany's second-largest regional daily, with a sold circulation of around 179,000 copies and a reach of around 730,000 readers. In Solingen the paper competes with the Solinger Tageblatt, the city's independent daily, creating one of the few remaining two-daily cities in the German regional press. The Solinger Morgenpost's market position rests on the Rheinische Post's comprehensive regional journalism and its deep local presence in the blade city.

Like all German regional dailies, the Rheinische Post has experienced significant circulation decline since the late 1990s, with sold circulation falling by more than half, a trend addressed through e-paper subscriptions, the rp-online.de portal and digital products. The paper's reputation as one of Germany's most cited regional newspapers underlines its journalistic standing. In Solingen the competition between the two dailies keeps local journalism vibrant, with the Solinger Morgenpost offering readers the combination of dedicated blade-city reporting and the Rheinische Post's full regional, national and international coverage.

Digital Presence

The Solinger Morgenpost's digital home is rp-online.de, the Rheinische Post's online portal and one of Germany's leading regional news websites. Readers can access the complete printed edition as an e-paper, available online through the iKiosk platform, and the portal's online newsroom provides continuously updated news from Düsseldorf, the Lower Rhine and the Bergisches Land. The paper reaches readers through social media channels, push notifications and newsletters.

The digital offering follows a subscription model, with the e-paper available as part of print subscriptions or as a standalone digital subscription. The Rheinische Post's article archive, available since 2001, provides a searchable record of the paper's journalism. The integration of the Solinger Morgenpost into the large rp-online.de platform gives the Solingen edition a modern digital infrastructure and extends its reach beyond the print circulation area, while its core remains the daily journalism for the blade city and the Bergisches Land.