About Backnanger Kreiszeitung

Backnanger Kreiszeitung

The Backnanger Kreiszeitung, known to its readers as the BKZ, is the daily newspaper of Backnang, the Große Kreisstadt in the Rems-Murr-Kreis of Baden-Württemberg, and with a first issue dating to 19 March 1832 it is one of the oldest newspapers in southwestern Germany. For a century and a half it has been owned by the Stroh family of Backnang, a continuity of family publishing rare in the contemporary German press, and since 1975 it has taken its national and regional section, the Mantel, from the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. It appears daily except Sundays in Rheinisch format, sells 10,352 copies, and serves as the official gazette for the Rems-Murr-Kreis and the city of Backnang. In August 2026 it was announced that the paper will be taken over by the Zeitungsverlag Waiblingen, together with the Murrhardter Zeitung, with the integration to be completed by the end of January 2027.

Overview

The Backnanger Kreiszeitung serves Backnang, a town of some thirty-five thousand inhabitants on the Murr river northeast of Stuttgart, and the surrounding communities of the Rems-Murr-Kreis, a district that stretches from the Stuttgart commuter belt into the Swabian Forest. Its readers find the classic program of the German regional daily: the town council and district politics, the local economy between the Stuttgart automotive region and the crafts businesses of the Murr valley, education and social affairs, the club and association life, and the court and police reporting of the area. The paper's local pages are produced by its own Backnang newsroom, twelve staff editors as of 2020 plus freelancers, under local editorial head Kornelius Fritz, while the Mantel arrives from the Stuttgarter Nachrichten in Stuttgart.

The sold circulation of 10,352 copies reflects the paper's loyal core in its home market, though it has fallen by more than forty-two percent since 1998, in line with the structural decline of the German regional press. As the amtliches Bekanntmachungsblatt, the official gazette, for the Rems-Murr-Kreis and the Große Kreisstadt Backnang, the paper carries a public function beyond its journalism: official notices, tender announcements and municipal publications appear in its pages, a role that underscores its institutional anchoring in the district. The paper appears in Rheinisch format and its newsroom sits at Postgasse 7 in the Backnang old town.

History

The paper first appeared on 19 March 1832 under the name Intelligenz-Blatt, in an edition of about one hundred copies, published by the printer Caspar Hack. It thus belongs to the generation of German local papers founded in the press spring that followed the July Revolution of 1830, when censorship eased across the German Confederation and a wave of new titles appeared. In 1875 the paper, then called the Murrtal-Bote, passed into the ownership of the Stroh family, which has owned the publishing house, the Stroh. Druck- und Medien GmbH of Backnang, ever since, a century and a half of family continuity that survived the German Empire, two world wars, the Nazi era and the postwar reconstruction.

The paper's modern identity took shape in two steps: in 1951 it adopted its current name, the Backnanger Kreiszeitung, and in 1975 it began taking its Mantel from the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the Stuttgart daily with which it has been editorially partnered ever since. The Stroh family kept the paper independent through the consolidation waves that swept the Baden-Württemberg press, remaining publisher, printer and owner in one. In August 2026, however, it was announced that the Zeitungsverlag Waiblingen, the publisher of the neighboring Waiblinger Kreiszeitung, will take over the Backnanger Kreiszeitung together with the Murrhardter Zeitung, closing the local Backnang printing plant, with the takeover and integration of the Backnang and Murrhardt publishing operations to be completed by the end of January 2027 at the latest. The announcement marks the end of an era for one of the last family-owned dailies of the region.

Coverage and Content

The BKZ's local pages cover Backnang and the Rems-Murr-Kreis in the detail its readers expect from their home paper: the town council and the district council, the mayors of the surrounding municipalities, the development of the town's commercial areas and the conversion of former industrial sites, the schools and the social institutions, and the cultural life of a town with a well-preserved half-timbered old town. The paper's position between Stuttgart and the Swabian Forest gives it a dual orientation: the commuter economy tied to the state capital and the automotive region, and the tourism, forestry and village life of the uplands to the east.

The Mantel from the Stuttgarter Nachrichten delivers the coverage of Baden-Württemberg state politics, national and international news, business and sports, produced by one of southern Germany's leading regional dailies. The combination gives the Backnang reader a complete daily paper with a strong local core. As the official gazette for the district and the city, the paper also publishes the formal notices of public life, from building permits to election announcements, a function that brings it into every architect's office, law firm and municipal department in its area.

Organization and Ownership

The Backnanger Kreiszeitung is published by the Stroh. Druck- und Medien GmbH of Backnang, owned by the Stroh family since 1875, with Werner Stroh as publisher and, together with Brigitte Janus, as managing director. The local newsroom is led by Kornelius Fritz as head of the Lokalredaktion, with a staff of twelve editors plus numerous freelancers. The paper's independence, its own printing plant and its family ownership made it an exception in the Baden-Württemberg press landscape, where most titles have long since been integrated into larger groups.

The announced takeover by the Zeitungsverlag Waiblingen will change this structure fundamentally. The Waiblingen publishing house, itself a regional publisher rooted in the neighboring district, will absorb the Backnang and Murrhardt titles, close the Backnang printing plant, and integrate the publishing operations by the end of January 2027. The details of the future newsroom organization had not been fully disclosed at the time of the announcement, but the logic follows the familiar pattern of the consolidating regional press: shared production and administration, with the local newsroom and the historic title preserved as the guarantee of local identity.

Digital Presence

The paper's website, bkz.de, is the digital home of the Backnang daily, carrying the newsroom's local reporting alongside the shared content of the Stuttgarter Nachrichten partnership. The site offers the e-paper edition of the printed paper for subscribers, continuously updated local news, photo galleries and the service content of a modern regional portal, following the subscription model standard in the German regional press. Social media channels distribute the day's local stories and drive traffic back to the portal.

For a paper approaching its two-hundredth birthday, the digital offering is the newest layer on a very old foundation: from the Intelligenz-Blatt of 1832, printed in runs of a hundred copies, to a contemporary news operation with print, e-paper, website and social channels. The coming integration into the Zeitungsverlag Waiblingen will reshape the paper's organization, but its task, as the daily chronicler of Backnang and the Rems-Murr-Kreis, remains what Caspar Hack's first issue set out to do: to inform the town about itself, every day, in whatever medium its readers choose, as it has done for nearly two centuries.