About Fehmarnsches Tageblatt

Fehmarnsches Tageblatt

The Fehmarnsches Tageblatt is a daily newspaper published in Burg auf Fehmarn, the main town of the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn in Schleswig-Holstein. It is Germany's only insular daily newspaper, appearing on working days for the island's residents. Founded in 1856, it is published by the Burg-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG and reported a sold circulation of 1,756 copies Monday through Saturday, down 24.4 percent since 1998. The paper's editorial leadership is Andreas Höppner, and the editorial office is located at Gertrudenthaler Straße 3 in Burg. The Burg-Verlag belongs to the Ippen media group, which acquired the publishing house in 1989. The paper's digital home is fehmarn24.de. The paper's 1856 founding makes it one of the oldest newspapers in Schleswig-Holstein, and its status as Germany's only insular daily gives it a unique place in the German press landscape.

Overview

The Fehmarnsches Tageblatt appears Monday through Saturday as a subscription daily for Fehmarn, Germany's third-largest island, situated in the Baltic Sea off the Wagrien peninsula. Fehmarn, with its main town Burg, its fishing villages, and its beaches, is one of Schleswig-Holstein's most popular holiday islands, connected to the mainland by the Fehmarn Sound Bridge and the site of the planned Fehmarn Belt fixed link to Denmark, one of Europe's largest infrastructure projects.

The paper's distribution area is the island itself, a community of around 12,000 permanent residents whose numbers swell in the summer tourist season. As Germany's only insular daily, the paper serves a readership defined by island life: the fishing and agricultural economies, the tourism industry, the ferry and bridge connections, and the Fehmarn Belt tunnel project that will transform the island's position in Europe. The paper's small circulation of 1,756 copies reflects the island's population, but its role as the daily record of Fehmarn's public life gives it an importance beyond its numbers. The island's unique position, connected to the mainland by the Fehmarn Sound Bridge and facing Denmark across the Fehmarn Belt, gives the paper's reporting a cross-border dimension, as the tunnel project brings Danish politics, European infrastructure policy, and international construction logistics into the island's daily news.

History

Fehmarn's press history begins with failure: in 1815 the Fehmarnsche Korrespondenz, a twice-monthly two-page paper, was launched but soon folded. In 1820 the lawyer Jes Greger tried again with the Fehmarnsche Wochenzeitung, which also had to close shortly after; the publisher explained that the Fehmarn farmers were too lazy to read, "and now in harvest time they read nothing at all." Further attempts at founding a newspaper on Fehmarn followed in 1835 and 1848.

Success came only in 1856, when the publisher O. L. Rathje launched the Fehmarnsches Wochenblatt with 157 subscribers. From 1900 it could appear twice weekly, from 1912 three times weekly, and from 1924 it appeared daily as the Fehmarnsches Tageblatt. Between the end of 1944 and November 1949 the paper did not appear; only then did it receive a license from the British occupation authorities.

In 1989 the publisher Dirk Ippen bought the Burg-Verlag, in which the paper continues to appear. The editorial office and distribution remained in Burg auf Fehmarn, while the paper itself is printed in Walsrode in Lower Saxony. In 2006 the Fehmarnsches Tageblatt celebrated its 150th anniversary, and for many years Henning Wolff served as the paper's editor-in-chief and publisher. The Ippen group's acquisition secured the island daily's future within one of Germany's major regional publishing groups, while preserving the paper's Burg editorial office and its identity as the island's own newspaper.

Coverage and Content

The Fehmarnsches Tageblatt's local pages cover the public life of the island in depth. Fehmarn city politics forms a core beat: the city council, the mayor's office, the development of Burg and the island's villages, and the municipal budget. The paper reports on the Ostholstein district administration, covers the police and the water rescue services, and follows the island's economy: the tourism industry, the fishing fleet, agriculture, and the construction and logistics of the Fehmarn Belt fixed link, the tunnel project that dominates the island's public debate.

The paper covers the emergency services and volunteer fire brigades, education from primary schools through the island's schools, and the clubs and associations that structure island community life: sports clubs, the ring riding associations, choral societies, and the calendar of festivals, the harbor festivals, markets, and the Christmas market. The paper's reporters cover the island's council meetings, report from the harbor and the beaches, and follow the Fehmarn Belt construction sites, maintaining the on-the-ground presence that distinguishes a staffed island daily. Cultural coverage follows concerts and exhibitions, and the paper documents the island's heritage, from the medieval churches to the fishing tradition.

The supra-regional pages supply national and international news, business and finance, sports, culture, and opinion. The paper carries the classified and display advertising, family announcements, and death notices customary in the German regional press. Reader service journalism addresses the practical questions of island life: the ferry and bridge connections to the mainland, the tourist season's rhythms, childcare, healthcare, and housing on an island where the second-home market shapes the property landscape, alongside the profiles, interviews, and historical retrospectives that connect the paper's readers to their island's heritage.

Organization and Ownership

The Fehmarnsches Tageblatt is published by the Burg-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, based in Burg auf Fehmarn. The publishing house has belonged to the Ippen media group since 1989, when publisher Dirk Ippen bought the Burg-Verlag. The paper's editorial leadership is Andreas Höppner, and the editorial office is located at Gertrudenthaler Straße 3, 23769 Fehmarn.

The Burg-Verlag also publishes the Heiligenhafener Post, the daily of the neighboring mainland town, with the two dailies reaching a combined daily circulation of around 4,200 copies, and the weekly papers "der reporter" in Eutin and in Plön/Preetz with a combined weekly circulation of around 52,000 copies. Editorial production combines the Burg newsroom, which produces the paper's local pages, with the group's central resources for supra-regional content. The paper is printed in Walsrode. Financial details for the individual titles are not disclosed separately. The Burg-Verlag's portfolio, spanning the island daily, the mainland daily, and the weeklies, makes it the dominant local publishing house for the Fehmarn and eastern Wagrien region.

Digital Presence

The Fehmarnsches Tageblatt's digital home is fehmarn24.de, where the paper publishes its local reporting for the island. The website carries continuously updated news, photo galleries, and video alongside the day's print content, and the paper offers an e-paper edition reproducing the printed paper page for page. As a subscription daily, much of the paper's digital content sits behind a paywall, with registered and subscribed readers accessing the full local reporting.

The paper's digital products include newsletters and breaking-news alerts, and its local reporting circulates through social media channels. As Germany's only insular daily, the Fehmarnsches Tageblatt's digital presence extends its island journalism to the tourists, the second-home owners, and the Fehmarn diaspora who follow the island's news from the mainland and beyond, while the printed daily continues to serve the islanders who form its core readership. The digital platform ensures that the paper's coverage of the Fehmarn Belt tunnel, the island's tourism economy, and the community's daily life reaches the commuters, the construction workers, and the younger readers who form the future of the paper's audience.