About Nürnberger Zeitung

Nürnberger Zeitung

The Nürnberger Zeitung (NZ) — subtitled "Fränkischer Kurier" — is one of the oldest daily newspapers in Germany, founded in 1804 and published in Nuremberg ever since, with a wartime interruption. As one of Germany's oldest continuously published dailies, it celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2004. The paper is part of the Verlag Nürnberger Presse Druckhaus Nürnberg publishing group, which also publishes the Nürnberger Nachrichten — but for most of its modern history the NZ maintained its editorial independence as the "publizistische Alternative," the journalistic alternative, within the same publishing house. Published daily except Sunday, it serves Nuremberg and, as the "Nordbayerische Zeitung," the wider northern Bavarian region since 1968. Its daily enclosure is the Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger, and its weekend supplement is the "MAGAZIN am Wochenende."

Overview

The Nürnberger Zeitung is a regional daily newspaper published daily except Sunday in Nuremberg, Bavaria. Its home market is the city of Nuremberg — Bavaria's second city with around 540,000 inhabitants — and since 1968 it has also been distributed beyond the city as the "Nordbayerische Zeitung," extending its reach into northern Bavaria. The paper appears with the subtitle "Fränkischer Kurier" (Franconian Courier), a name that recalls its 19th-century heritage as a Franconian news institution.

The NZ is published by the Verlag Nürnberger Presse Druckhaus Nürnberg GmbH & Co. KG (VNP), the publishing house owned by Bärbel Schnell and Sabine Schnell-Pleyer. The editor-in-chief is Michael Husarek. The paper's website is nz.de. Every issue of the NZ carries the Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger as its daily city enclosure, and the weekend edition includes the "MAGAZIN am Wochenende" (formerly "NZ am Wochenende") — the supplements that complete the paper's offering.

The NZ's position in the Nuremberg newspaper market is historically unique: it is the city's second daily alongside the larger Nürnberger Nachrichten, published by the same publishing house yet long maintained as an editorially independent alternative. That duality — one publishing house, two editorially distinct dailies — was a deliberate publishing policy, pursued by Bruno Schnell from the 1960s onward, and it gave Nuremberg something few German cities retain: a genuine choice between two local daily newspapers.

History

The Nürnberger Zeitung's history begins on 1 October 1804, when the first issue of "Der fränkische Kreiscorrespondent von und für Deutschland" appeared in Nuremberg. The paper was founded by Ludwig von Taube and von Schaden — the Württemberg and Hohenlohe envoys to the Franconian Imperial Circle — together with the cartographer Hammer. It addressed itself primarily to nobles, officers, and officials, with an emphasis on political reporting; Nuremberg's central location on the trade and postal routes, and the paper's Europe-wide network of correspondents — with informants in Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Kiel, Vienna, Pressburg, Budapest, and Rome — made it current and attractive to a subscriber base of officials, nobles, and military men across Germany and the neighboring German-speaking countries.

From 1806 the paper was officially called the "Korrespondent von und für Deutschland," and in 1807 — by its own account the first German newspaper to do so — it introduced a feuilleton: a section, visually separated by a line from the rest of the reporting, devoted to literature, theater, fashion, and curiosities, subject to less strict censorship than political news. Under long-serving editors-in-chief Jakob Henle (1829–1845) and Philipp Feust (1846–1880) — two Jewish intellectuals — the paper developed from a pure news sheet into an opinion paper: Feust added commentary, expanded the offering beyond domestic and foreign politics and the feuilleton to include a business section, and made the Korrespondent a liberal voice of the 19th century.

After merging with the "General-Anzeiger für Nürnberg und Umgebung," the Spandel publishing family steered a party-politically neutral course as a general-interest paper, with great success especially in the Weimar Republic. The paper, called the Nürnberger Zeitung since 1913, was brought into line (gleichgeschaltet) after 1933 and had to cease publication in 1944. After the end of compulsory licensing, the NZ reappeared on 30 July 1949 — and, unlike most other traditional papers, held its own in the postwar market.

Faced with declining circulations, the NZ began cooperating with its competitor, the Nürnberger Nachrichten, in 1961; in 1962 the NN's publishing group acquired 49 percent of the NZ's publisher, the Nordbayerische Verlagsgesellschaft, taking it over completely in the 1980s. Bruno Schnell deliberately preserved the NZ as an independent organ with its own editorial staff — the "publizistische Alternative" within the group. That editorial independence lasted until 30 September 2020; since October 2020 the NZ has been produced by a joint central editorial operation together with the Nürnberger Nachrichten and nordbayern.de. The NZ remains one of the oldest daily newspapers still published in Germany.

Coverage and Content

The Nürnberger Zeitung's content covers the full range of a regional daily: Nuremberg city affairs — through its daily enclosure, the Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger — Franconian regional news, Bavarian state politics, national and international news, business, culture, and sport. The paper's 19th-century heritage as a liberal opinion paper with an early feuilleton echoes in its cultural coverage: the paper has traditionally given weight to arts, literature, and ideas alongside the daily news.

The NZ's city coverage addresses Nuremberg's civic life in depth: the Stadtrat and city administration, the districts, the cultural institutions — the Staatstheater, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, the concert halls — the churches, schools, and university, and the club and association life of Bavaria's second city. The paper covers the events that define Nuremberg's year: the Christkindlesmarkt, the Altstadtfest, the Bardentreffen, the Blaue Nacht, and the sporting fortunes of the 1. FC Nürnberg.

As the "Nordbayerische Zeitung" beyond Nuremberg since 1968, the paper also serves readers in the wider northern Bavarian region — a distribution that reflects the historic reach of the Franconian press. The weekend "MAGAZIN am Wochenende" provides the long-form journalism, features, and service content of the Sunday-adjacent edition. In the division of labor within the publishing group, the NZ has long positioned itself as the alternative voice: where the NN is the larger regional paper with its many local editions, the NZ is the Nuremberg paper with the longer history — the 1804 foundation that makes it one of Germany's oldest dailies.

Organization and Ownership

The Nürnberger Zeitung is published by the Verlag Nürnberger Presse Druckhaus Nürnberg GmbH & Co. KG, the Nuremberg publishing house owned by Bärbel Schnell and Sabine Schnell-Pleyer, the daughters of Bruno Schnell; since May 2025 Sigrun Albert has served as operational managing director. The editor-in-chief is Michael Husarek. The paper's history as a publishing entity runs through the Nordbayerische Verlagsgesellschaft, in which the VNP acquired its initial 49 percent stake in 1962 before taking it over fully in the 1980s.

The defining organizational fact of the NZ's modern history was its editorial independence within the group: from the 1960s until 30 September 2020, the paper maintained its own editorial staff and its own editorial line as the deliberate alternative to the Nürnberger Nachrichten — a publishing policy that preserved genuine press plurality in Nuremberg. Since October 2020, the NZ has been produced by the joint central editorial operation shared with the NN and nordbayern.de, reflecting the economic realities of the regional press.

The publishing house's broader history frames the NZ's institutional home: founded in 1945 by Joseph E. Drexel, builder of the "Nürnberger Modell" in 1959, founder of Radio F in 1986, launcher of nordbayern.de in 1996, and since May 2025 housed in the "Cube" headquarters at the Wöhrder See in Nuremberg. Within that house, the NZ is the historic title — the 1804 foundation that predates the publishing group itself by 141 years.

Digital Presence

The Nürnberger Zeitung's digital home is nz.de, the paper's website, integrated into the publishing group's digital operations alongside nordbayern.de — the portal founded in 1996 as the joint online offering of the NN and the NZ, refocused after the 2020 launch of NN.de, and produced since December 2023 by its own editorial team. The group's digital platforms carry the NZ's journalism with continuous updates, digital subscriptions, and e-paper editions of the print paper.

The group's digital strategy follows the pattern of the larger German regional publishers: subscription-based websites, e-paper, mobile apps, newsletters, and social media channels. For a paper founded in 1804 — whose first readers received it by post-chaise and whose 19th-century correspondents wrote from Vienna, Pressburg, and Rome — the digital transformation is the latest in a long series of technological revolutions: from the hand press to the rotary press to the offset press to the screen.

In Nuremberg's digital media environment, the NZ's online presence competes with nordbayern.de's own portal, the NN's digital editions, the city administration's communications, and the array of local digital initiatives. The paper that introduced Germany's first newspaper feuilleton in 1807, that survived the 1944 closure and the postwar rebirth, and that maintained its editorial independence within a shared publishing house for half a century, now pursues its readers online — one of Germany's oldest dailies in the newest medium.