About Augsburger Allgemeine

Augsburger Allgemeine

The Augsburger Allgemeine is one of Germany's largest regional daily newspapers, published in Augsburg, Bavaria, since 1945. It first appeared on 30 October 1945 as the Schwäbische Landeszeitung — handed by the 12th US Army Group to the German publishers Curt Frenzel and Johann Wilhelm Naumann under License No. 7 — and took its current name on 1 November 1959. With a sold circulation of 247,852 copies (first quarter of 2025), a print audience of around 730,000, and up to 20 million online visitors per month, it is the dominant paper of Bavarian Swabia — and in 2007/2008 it was the largest Bavarian subscription newspaper, a title it held when Bavarian papers still sold over 340,000 copies. It belongs to the Mediengruppe Pressedruck and is still fully owned by the Holland family, now in its third generation. The editors-in-chief are Andrea Kümpfbeck and Peter Müller, who took over the dual leadership in September 2023 — continuing a line of editors that has steered the paper since the Frenzel era. Its website is augsburger-allgemeine.de — the digital home of a paper whose print history began under American license in 1945 and whose name reaches back to Cotta's 1798 founding.

Overview

The Augsburger Allgemeine is Swabia's newspaper — the daily of Bavarian Swabia and adjacent parts of Upper Bavaria, published in Rheinisch format from Augsburg, the 2,000-year-old Roman city on the Lech, the city of the Fugger and of Mozart's father. Its main distribution area is the Bavarian administrative district of Swabia and the bordering parts of Upper Bavaria.

The paper's name reaches back to one of the great newspapers of the German 19th century: the Allgemeine Zeitung founded in 1798 by Johann Friedrich Cotta in Tübingen, published in Augsburg from 1807 to 1882, where it became one of the most important German-language dailies of its time — conservative in orientation, with Heinrich Schliemann publishing his Troy excavation results from Hissarlık in its pages and in the London Times, Heinrich Heine serving as Paris correspondent from 1832, Richard Wagner contributing articles and obituaries, Adolphe Thiers writing for it as "Der französische Correspondent," and Alfred von Reumont contributing some 1,500 articles over more than fifty years. In 1882 the Allgemeine Zeitung moved to Munich; its last edition under that title appeared on 1 March 1925. The modern Augsburger Allgemeine is not legally connected to that paper, but it carries the name and the Augsburg tradition — a lineage few German regional papers can claim — and one the paper wears with quiet pride.

History

The 1945 founding: License No. 7

After the Second World War, the 12th US Army Group published the Augsburger Anzeiger from 13 July to 23 October 1945 — the occupation army's own paper for the liberated city. It was then handed to the German publishers Curt Frenzel and Johann Wilhelm Naumann (License No. 7) and appeared from 30 October 1945 as the Schwäbische Landeszeitung — initially only twice weekly under the restrictions of the early postwar years. Frenzel had received the license from Colonel Bernhard MacMahon of the US military government in Bavaria. On 1 November 1959 the paper was renamed Augsburger Allgemeine — the name under which it would become one of Germany's great regional papers.

The Holland family

After Curt Frenzel's death in 1970, his daughter Ellinor Holland continued the newspaper. The paper and publishing company are still fully owned by the Holland family, now managed by the third generation — a continuity of family ownership rare among German papers of this size, and the reason the paper has never been absorbed into a national group. Key publishers in its history include Curt Frenzel and Günter Holland — the founder who built it from a twice-weekly licensed sheet and the generation that made it Bavaria's largest subscription paper — and whose family still owns every share.

Content and Programming

In the central newsroom in Augsburg and 16 local newsrooms, about 200 editors produce national and local news for the print and digital editions of the Augsburger Allgemeine and its home papers — one of the largest regional newsrooms in Germany. The national section of the Allgäuer Zeitung is also produced here — the Augsburg newsroom thus writing the national pages for the Allgäu as well as for Swabia — and there is a constant exchange of content with the Main-Post and the Südkurier, which likewise belong to the Mediengruppe Pressedruck — the Augsburg-based group that has grown around the Allgemeine into one of southern Germany's significant regional media houses.

The paper maintains a broad correspondent network, with reporters in Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Geneva, Madrid, Warsaw, Paris, Vienna, London, Rome, Stockholm, Moscow, Beijing, Istanbul, Cape Town, and Washington — a foreign desk unusual for a regional paper, and a legacy of the Allgemeine Zeitung's great-power reporting tradition — the paper that once carried Heine's Paris letters now keeps correspondents on four continents.

The paper's website has operated since 2001; since 2013 a metered paywall has applied: 10 free articles without registration, 20 with registration, then a subscription is required — one of the earlier paywall adoptions among German regional papers.

Coverage and Audience

The Augsburger Allgemeine serves Bavarian Swabia and adjacent parts of Upper Bavaria — the region between the Allgäu and the Danube, from Augsburg's Renaissance streets to the Alpine edge. With 247,852 copies sold (down from 367,000 in 2001 — the long decline of the German regional press, though gentler here than in many regions), a print audience of around 730,000, and up to 20 million online visitors per month, it is by far the most-used news medium in its region — the paper that Swabia wakes up with. Its readership is the classic regional-paper profile: loyal, subscription-based — the Swabian households that have taken the Allgemeine with breakfast for generations, in a region where the paper is an institution.

Ownership

The Augsburger Allgemeine was founded on 30 October 1945 as the Schwäbische Landeszeitung by Curt Frenzel, licensed by Colonel Bernhard MacMahon of the US military government, and renamed on 1 November 1959. After Frenzel's death in 1970 his daughter Ellinor Holland continued the paper; it is still fully owned by the Holland family, now in its third generation, and belongs to the Mediengruppe Pressedruck.

The Augsburger Allgemeine belongs to the Mediengruppe Pressedruck (Presse-Druck- und Verlags-GmbH), the Augsburg-based media group that has grown around the paper into one of southern Germany's significant regional media houses — also the home of the Main-Post and the Südkurier. The paper and publishing company are still fully owned by the Holland family — founder Curt Frenzel's family — now in its third generation of management: Ellinor Holland, Günter Holland, and Andrea Kümpfbeck are among the publishers who have shaped it — and the paper has never answered to anyone but its readers and its owners.

Digital Presence

The website augsburger-allgemeine.de has operated since 2001 and reaches up to 20 million visitors per month — a digital audience many times the print circulation, and the reason the paper's metered paywall has held since 2013. Since 2013 it has used a metered paywall (10 free articles without registration, 20 with registration). The site operates with digital subscriptions alongside the print and ePaper editions. The paper is active on social media with Swabia-focused content, serving a region whose newspaper has been part of daily life since 1945 — and whose name reaches back to 1798, to Cotta, Heine, and the golden age of the German press, a heritage no other German regional daily can match in quite the same way. From Cotta's 1798 Allgemeine Zeitung to the Holland family's third generation, the Augsburger Allgemeine carries two centuries of German press history into the digital age.