About Norddeutsche Rundschau

Norddeutsche Rundschau

The Norddeutsche Rundschau is the daily newspaper of Itzehoe and the Steinburg district in Schleswig-Holstein. Founded in 1817, it is one of the oldest newspapers in northern Germany, with a publishing history stretching back more than two centuries to the Danish era of the duchies. Published in Itzehoe — the historic county town on the Stör, around 33,000 inhabitants — it serves the district of Steinburg with the exception of the Wilstermarsch, appearing as one of the titles of the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag (sh:z) group based in Flensburg. With a sold circulation of around 8,100 copies, it is the district's paper of record: the daily chronicle of a rural region between Hamburg and the North Sea, produced by a local newsroom in Itzehoe and backed by the editorial resources of the sh:z group.

Overview

The Norddeutsche Rundschau is a regional daily newspaper published Monday through Saturday, based in Itzehoe in the district of Steinburg, Schleswig-Holstein. Its distribution area is the Steinburg district with the exception of the Wilstermarsch — the marshland in the district's southwest, which is served by the Wilstersche Zeitung, also a sh:z title. The paper's territory thus covers Itzehoe itself, the geest and marsh villages of central Steinburg, the industrial town of Brunsbüttel on the Elbe and the Kiel Canal, Glückstadt, Kellinghusen, and the rural communities between the Elbe, the Stör, and the Kiel Canal.

The sold circulation stands at 8,123 copies (IVW 2/2026, Monday to Saturday). The paper appears in the Rhenish format as part of the sh:z group — with 22 daily titles, the largest daily-newspaper publisher in Schleswig-Holstein, whose papers together sell more than 150,000 copies with a readership of around half a million. The group's website, shz.de, carries the news of all its titles, including the Norddeutsche Rundschau's local reporting; the paper's own site is norddeutsche-rundschau.de.

Itzehoe, the paper's home town, is one of the oldest towns in Holstein — first documented in the 12th century — and the historic administrative center of the Steinburg district. The paper's offices stand on the Sandberg near the town center, close to the St. Laurentii church and the former Itzehoe monastery. The district the paper serves is a characteristic North German rural region: farmland and marshes, small towns, the chemical and energy industry around Brunsbüttel, and the commuter belt reaching toward Hamburg.

History

The Norddeutsche Rundschau's founding year of 1817 places it among the oldest continuously published newspapers in Germany. The paper was established in Itzehoe in the era when Holstein was still ruled by the Danish king as Duke of Holstein — a time when the press of the duchies operated under Danish press law and the region's newspapers served the towns and estates of the old order. Through the 19th century the paper documented Itzehoe's transformation: the Schleswig-Holstein uprisings, the Prussian annexation of 1866, the coming of the railway, and the town's growth as an administrative and garrison center.

The 20th century brought the paper through the Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi period — during which Itzehoe also hosted the Schleswig-Holsteinische Tageszeitung, the Nazi party's first regional daily, founded in the town in 1929 — the destruction of the Second World War, and the Federal Republic. Like all German newspapers, the Rundschau was re-established under Allied licence after 1945 and rebuilt its position as the district's daily paper in the postwar decades.

In the modern era the paper became part of the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag, the Flensburg-based group that united the region's historic local papers — the Flensburger Tageblatt (1865), the Schleswiger Nachrichten (1812), the Holsteinischer Courier (1872), the Husumer Nachrichten, and the Rundschau among them — into a single publishing house. The sh:z model preserved the historic mastheads and local newsrooms while centralizing production, the general section, and digital infrastructure. The Norddeutsche Rundschau thus entered the 21st century as a 200-year-old title within a modern media group: its Itzehoe newsroom producing the district's pages, its general section shared with the group's other titles.

Coverage and Content

The Norddeutsche Rundschau's content combines the sh:z group's shared general section — national and international news, federal and state politics, business, and features produced in Flensburg — with a local section devoted to Itzehoe and the Steinburg district. The local pages cover the district council and the district administration, the Itzehoe city council and the councils of the district's towns and municipalities, the local courts, police news, schools, churches, and the clubs and associations of the region.

The paper's territory gives its journalism a distinctive profile. The district's economy — agriculture in the marshes and geest, the chemical industry and the Kiel Canal locks at Brunsbüttel, the energy infrastructure of the Elbe estuary, and the commuter economy oriented toward Hamburg — provides standing topics, as do the infrastructure questions of a rural district: transport links, broadband, medical care, and flood protection along the Elbe and Stör. The paper reports on the region's cultural life, from the Itzehoe theater to the district's museums and music societies, and on its sports clubs across the full range of disciplines.

The Rundschau also serves the traditional functions of the district daily: comprehensive coverage of municipal affairs that no larger paper attempts, family announcements, church news, club reports, and the court and police reporting that make the local paper the community's daily record. In a district where the paper is the principal journalistic voice — the Wilstermarsch excepted, where the sister title Wilstersche Zeitung serves — the Rundschau's local pages are the indispensable account of public life in Steinburg.

Organization and Ownership

The Norddeutsche Rundschau is published within the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag group, operating as sh:z Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag GmbH & Co. KG, based in Flensburg. The group's managing directors are Stefan Berthold, Jens Wegmann, and Paul Wehberg; the publishers are Werner F. Ebke and Jan Dirk Elstermann; the editors-in-chief are Stefan Hans Kläsener, Miriam Scharlibbe, Gerrit Bastian Mathiesen, and Jan Frederik Schönstedt.

The sh:z is a wholly owned subsidiary of medien holding:nord GmbH, also based in Flensburg, which also holds a stake in the radio group Regiocast. In February 2016 it was announced that NOZ Medien of Osnabrück would take over medien holding:nord GmbH; the Federal Cartel Office approved the merger in April 2016. The group's 22 daily titles include, alongside the Norddeutsche Rundschau, the Flensburger Tageblatt, the Schleswiger Nachrichten, the Holsteinischer Courier, the Husumer Nachrichten, the Segeberger Zeitung's sister titles, and the other historic papers of the state.

Within this structure, the Norddeutsche Rundschau maintains its Itzehoe newsroom and its historic masthead — the 1817 founding date that makes it one of the group's oldest titles. The paper's local journalists produce the Steinburg pages; the group's central operations supply the general section, production, and digital platforms. The names of individual local editors are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted; what is publicly visible is the daily product — the Itzehoe and Steinburg pages that appear in the sh:z's southwestern edition every publishing day.

Digital Presence

The Norddeutsche Rundschau's digital presence runs through shz.de, the central portal of the Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag, which carries the news of all 22 of the group's titles with continuous updates, as well as through the paper's own site, norddeutsche-rundschau.de. The portal offers digital subscriptions and e-paper editions alongside the print subscription, and the group's newsrooms produce online-first local news between print editions.

The sh:z's digital strategy follows the established pattern of German regional publishers: subscription-based websites, e-paper editions replicating the print papers, mobile apps, newsletters, and social media channels. For the Norddeutsche Rundschau, the digital channels carry the same district journalism as the print paper — the council reports, the Brunsbüttel industry news, the club announcements — to readers who increasingly consume their news on screens.

In the Steinburg district, the digital competition includes the online portals of neighboring papers, the district and municipal administrations' communications, and the growing array of local social media groups. The Rundschau's advantage remains its newsroom: a staffed local editorial operation in Itzehoe producing original district journalism daily. A newspaper founded in 1817, in the Danish era, now delivers the Steinburg district's news to smartphones — the same mission, in the same town, through two centuries of media history.