About Magdeburger Volksstimme

Magdeburger Volksstimme

The Magdeburger Volksstimme is the Magdeburg local edition of the Volksstimme, the regional daily newspaper for northern and central Saxony-Anhalt. Published in the state capital Magdeburg by the Mitteldeutsche Verlags- und Druckhaus GmbH, part of the Bauer Media Group, it appears Monday to Saturday and is the leading daily newspaper of the city and its region. The Volksstimme traces its name to a Social Democratic newspaper founded in Magdeburg in 1890, banned by the Nazis in 1933, re-established as a paper of the Soviet occupation zone in 1947, and privatized after reunification in 1991. With a sold circulation of around 117,000 copies across its editions, it is the dominant regional daily of northern Saxony-Anhalt and a monopolist in much of its circulation area.

Overview

The Magdeburger Volksstimme serves the state capital Magdeburg, a city of around 240,000 inhabitants on the Elbe, together with the surrounding Börde district and the communities of the Magdeburg region. As the local edition for the Landeshauptstadt, it is the most widely distributed and most frequently cited of the Volksstimme's editions, carrying the city council reporting, the state politics coverage from the Landtag and the state government, and the local news of the capital region. The paper's circulation area follows the boundaries of the former GDR district of Magdeburg, covering northern and central Saxony-Anhalt; in the south of the state the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of Halle is the counterpart, and only in the Altmark does the Volksstimme face a competitor in the Altmark Zeitung.

The newspaper appears Monday to Saturday in the Rhenish format. The sold circulation of the Volksstimme stands at 117,308 copies, a decline of 58.5 percent since 1998 that reflects the severe pressures on the East German regional press, though the paper remains by far the largest daily in its market. The paper is predominantly a subscription newspaper, and it is available as an e-paper. The printing center is located in Barleben, just north of Magdeburg near the A2 motorway, and the main editorial office has been in Magdeburg since 1998.

History

The name Volksstimme reaches back to March 1890, when the Magdeburg association of the Social Democratic Party decided to found its own newspaper. A trial issue appeared on 15 June 1890 in an edition of 50,000 copies, and the first regular issue followed on 1 July 1890 with 2,000 copies, appearing six times a week. The early paper, edited initially by Paul Kampffmeyer and Hans Müller, took a radical line even within the SPD, attacking party leaders for corruption and the suppression of free expression until August Bebel himself traveled to Magdeburg to denounce the young editors, who resigned two days later. Thereafter the paper represented the normal Social Democratic line. Around 1900 its circulation stood at about 12,500 copies, rising to over 30,000 by 1913 and 42,000 in 1929, when the publishing house employed 209 people. In March 1933 the Nazis forced the paper to cease publication.

A new paper of the same name, without organizational or personnel continuity with its predecessor, was founded in August 1947 as an organ of the Socialist Unity Party in Magdeburg, becoming from 1952 the organ of the SED district leadership of the Magdeburg district. On 15 January 1990, in the wake of the peaceful revolution, the editorial staff broke with its publisher and founded its own publishing house. The privatization was contested: the Treuhandanstalt received thirteen offers for the paper, and in 1991 the Volksstimme was acquired by the Bauer publishing group of Hamburg, appearing since then with the Magdeburger Verlags- und Druckhaus GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of what is now the Bauer Media Group. An SPD application for restitution of the publishing house expropriated in 1933 was rejected in 1990.

Since the Bauer takeover the paper has been developed as the regional daily for northern and central Saxony-Anhalt. In January 2020 the Bauer Media Group also acquired the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of Halle, the state's second large daily, and the publishing house was renamed the Mitteldeutsche Verlags- und Druckhaus GmbH. The editor-in-chief of the Volksstimme has been Marc Rath since 24 February 2023, succeeding Alois Kösters, who led the paper from 2011 to 2023.

Coverage and Content

The Magdeburg local edition reports on the city council of the state capital, the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt and the state government, and the issues of a city reinventing itself since reunification: the redevelopment of the city center and the Elbe waterfront, the expansion of the Otto von Guericke University and the university hospital, the growth of logistics and industry along the A2 and A14 corridors, and the debates over housing, transport and the energy transition. The paper follows the fortunes of the city's major employers, the research institutions, and the port and logistics sector on the Elbe.

Cultural coverage draws on Magdeburg's rich offerings: the Theater Magdeburg, the concerts and festivals, the museums including the cultural history museum in the former monastery, and the legacy of Otto von Guericke, the city's famous son. The paper reports on the clubs and associations, churches, schools and universities, on local sports led by the 1. FC Magdeburg football club and the SC Magdeburg handball team, whose successes are followed with particular passion. Police and court reporting, municipal announcements, event listings, and readers' letters complete the local offering.

The supra-regional pages provide coverage of Saxony-Anhalt state politics, national and international news, business and the economy, culture, and sports, produced by the paper's own editorial department in Magdeburg. Special pages mark local, state and federal elections, the Christmas season, school enrollment and regional economic themes, and the advertising section connects the region's businesses with the paper's large readership.

Organization and Ownership

The Magdeburger Volksstimme is published by the Mitteldeutsche Verlags- und Druckhaus GmbH, headquartered in Magdeburg. The publishing house is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bauer Media Group of Hamburg, one of Germany's large media companies, which acquired the paper in 1991 and the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in January 2020, uniting Saxony-Anhalt's two large regional dailies under one owner. The managing director is Marco Fehrecke, and the editor-in-chief is Marc Rath.

The main editorial office in Magdeburg produces the paper's supra-regional pages and the Magdeburg local edition, while local editorial offices across northern and central Saxony-Anhalt produce the local pages of the paper's regional editions. Printing is carried out at the modern printing center in Barleben. The paper's market position as the monopolist daily in much of central Saxony-Anhalt gives it a distinctive role in the state's public sphere, and its reporting is widely cited by national media covering the state capital and the region.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Magdeburger Volksstimme is volksstimme.de, the news portal of the Volksstimme, which carries current local news from Magdeburg and the region alongside the wider Saxony-Anhalt coverage. Readers can take out print, digital and combined subscriptions through the portal, and the e-paper edition reproduces each day's printed newspaper digitally for reading on computers, tablets and smartphones.

The paper's news apps extend its content to mobile readers, and the title maintains a social media presence through which local stories from Magdeburg are shared, from council decisions to sports results and breaking news. Newsletters and push alerts keep subscribers informed of developments in the state capital. The digital strategy balances the defense of the subscription business with the expansion of digital readership, in a market where the paper's dominance in print gives it a strong starting position for the digital transformation.