About Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten

Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten is a subscription daily newspaper serving the town of Krumbach and the southern part of the Günzburg district in Bavarian Swabia. Published from Monday to Saturday, it is one of the smaller local editions of the Augsburger Allgemeine, taking its supraregional pages from the Augsburg daily while producing its own local content. With sold circulation of 6,270 copies and a first issue dating to 1841, it is the local daily of the former Krumbach district.

Overview

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten, abbreviated MN, appears six days a week in Rhenish format, covering the southern part of the Günzburg district, the area of the former Krumbach district. Its local pages are produced by its own editorial team in Krumbach, while the national and international mantle comes from the Augsburger Allgemeine. The paper's offices are located in the town of Krumbach.

The sold circulation of 6,270 copies, according to IVW figures for the fourth quarter of 2024, makes the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten one of the smallest local editions in the Augsburger Allgemeine family, which includes larger titles such as the Günzburger Zeitung with 10,871 copies and the Mindelheimer Zeitung with 10,537 copies. The Augsburger Allgemeine's local edition table lists the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten with 5,913 copies for the Krumbach and southern Günzburg district area, a figure from a slightly different reporting basis.

The audience is the population of the southern Günzburg district: residents of Krumbach, a town of around 14,000 that serves as an administrative center with numerous authorities, and of the surrounding villages and small towns. The paper's readers include public servants, employees of local businesses, farmers, and commuters. Krumbach is the seat of the district's southern administration, hosting a police inspection, the Office for Rural Development Swabia, the Office for Food, Agriculture and Forestry, the State Building Authority, and a branch of the Günzburg district office, giving the town an administrative character that shapes the paper's reporting.

The paper competes in the broader sense with the free weekly advertising papers Schwabenecho and Extra Mittelschwaben, which report on events in the area, but as a subscription daily it occupies the position of the local paper of record.

History

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten traces its first issue to 1841, giving it a publishing history of more than 180 years. The publisher is the local publisher Hans-Peter Ziegler, working in cooperation with the Presse-Druck- und Verlags-GmbH, the publishing company of the Augsburger Allgemeine. This structure, a local home publisher cooperating with the Augsburg daily, mirrors the arrangement of other small editions in the Augsburger Allgemeine family.

The paper's long history spans the Kingdom of Bavaria, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and the postwar Federal Republic. Like many small Bavarian local papers, it survived the 20th century's upheavals by maintaining its local roots while adapting its supraregional content through cooperation with larger partners. The cooperation with the Augsburger Allgemeine gives the small Krumbach paper access to the journalistic resources of one of Bavaria's major regional dailies.

The Augsburger Allgemeine itself was first published on 30 October 1945 as the Schwäbische Landeszeitung, on the initiative of Curt Frenzel, renamed Augsburger Allgemeine on 1 November 1959, and grown into one of Germany's largest regional dailies under the Holland family's ownership. The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten's status as a head paper of the Augsburger Allgemeine places it within this large regional network while preserving its Krumbach identity.

Coverage and Content

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten's local pages concentrate on Krumbach and the southern Günzburg district: town council and district council decisions, the work of the numerous authorities seated in Krumbach, school news, construction and infrastructure projects, and the activities of local clubs and associations. The town's administrative character provides distinctive material, from the district office branch to the integrated control center Donau-Iller operated by the Bavarian Red Cross.

The mantle from the Augsburger Allgemeine supplies national and international politics, the economy, culture, and sport, produced by one of Bavaria's largest regional newsrooms. Regional pages cover Bavarian Swabia in depth, reporting on Augsburg, the Günzburg district, and major stories from the paper's wider circulation area, while the Krumbach newsroom keeps the focus firmly on the southern district. The paper's local journalists cover the issues that matter to the former Krumbach district's communities, from agricultural policy to the development of the rural infrastructure.

Special pages and supplements follow the local calendar: school enrollment specials, Christmas features, and themed pages around town festivals and community events. The paper covers local sports, particularly football, with results from the district leagues. Reader letters provide a forum for civic debate, and the paper reports on court cases and police news from the area.

The paper has shown its civic role in local democracy: in 2026, the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten cooperated with the local forum on a mayoral candidate podium discussion in Krumbach, after 18 years of the incumbent mayor's tenure, demonstrating the paper's function as a platform for local political debate. Such events underline the paper's embeddedness in the civic life of the former district capital.

Organization and Ownership

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten is published by the local publisher Hans-Peter Ziegler, the home publisher, in cooperation with the Presse-Druck- und Verlags-GmbH, the publishing company of the Augsburger Allgemeine. The editor-in-chief of the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten is Peter Bauer.

The Augsburger Allgemeine's publishing house is owned by the Mediengruppe Pressedruck and managed by the Holland family in its third generation. The cooperation between the Ziegler publishing house and Augsburg follows the head-paper model: locally owned and produced local pages, with the supraregional content supplied by the Augsburg central newsroom.

The paper's editorial team is based in Krumbach, producing the local pages for the southern Günzburg district with reporters who know the area's municipalities, authorities, and clubs. Specific staffing figures for the Krumbach editorial office are not publicly confirmed. The paper is printed within the Augsburger Allgemeine's printing operations.

Digital Presence

The Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten's digital presence is maintained through the Augsburger Allgemeine's central online portal at augsburger-allgemeine.de, where local news from Krumbach appears alongside the paper's wider coverage of Bavarian Swabia. The paper's own web address, mittelschwaebische-nachrichten.de, is listed as its online home. The portal publishes breaking news, photo galleries, and video content, with local stories organized by edition.

The Augsburger Allgemeine's app includes the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten among its editions, alongside the Aichacher Nachrichten, the Günzburger Zeitung, the Mindelheimer Zeitung, and the other local titles. The app offers the e-paper, a read-aloud function, puzzles, podcasts, and the digital weekly extra for the reader's region.

Digital subscriptions follow the standard model with premium content behind a paywall. The group's newsletter Sechs um 6 is the most-subscribed newsletter of the editorial team, delivering the day's top stories to inboxes each evening. Social media channels distribute headlines and engage readers, and the app's read-aloud function makes the paper's content accessible on the go. For the Mittelschwäbische Nachrichten, the digital platform extends its reach to commuters and former residents of the Krumbach area who stay connected to their home district from Augsburg, Ulm, or Munich, and it provides a channel for breaking news that complements the daily print edition. The combination of the 1841-founded print title and the modern app keeps the small paper present in readers' daily routines.