About Oberhessische Zeitung

Oberhessische Zeitung

The Oberhessische Zeitung (OZ) of Alsfeld is the local daily newspaper of the Vogelsberg district in Hesse — and one of the oldest newspapers in the state, first published on 1 January 1833. Founded by Friedrich Martin Ehrenklau as the Anzeigeblatt für Alsfeld und Umgebung, it has been printed by the same family for five generations. Published Monday through Saturday with a sold circulation of around 3,900 copies, it serves the old Alsfeld district: the half-timbered town of Alsfeld and the surrounding Vogelsberg communities. Since January 2024 it has belonged to the Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft and its Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen, after a decade in which it was held back from an earlier group sale. The paper is not to be confused with the former Marburg newspaper of the same name, which merged into the Oberhessische Presse in 1951.

Overview

The Oberhessische Zeitung is a local daily newspaper published Monday through Saturday in Alsfeld, Hesse — a half-timbered town of around 17,000 inhabitants in the Vogelsbergkreis, some 60 kilometers northeast of Gießen. Its distribution area is the old Alsfeld district (Altkreis Alsfeld): the town of Alsfeld itself and the municipalities of Antrifttal, Feldatal, Gemünden (Felda), Grebenau, Homberg (Ohm), Kirtorf, Romrod, and Schwalmtal — the western Vogelsberg countryside of small towns, villages, and farmland.

The sold circulation stands at 3,878 copies (IVW 2/2026, Monday to Saturday), a decline of 49.2 percent since 1998 — a steep erosion that reflects the structural pressures on small rural dailies, but the paper continues its daily publication as the district's local newspaper. It is published by the Verlagsgesellschaft Vogelsberg GmbH & Co. KG, based at Am Kreuz 10 in Alsfeld. The paper's website is oberhessische-zeitung.de. The OZ describes itself as the largest local newspaper in the Vogelsberg district and emphasizes Alsfeld's central-place function: as a partner of local businesses at major events, of local clubs, and of cultural organizers.

The paper's territory is the Vogelsberg — the extinct volcanic massif whose rounded highlands dominate central Hesse. The region's economy is agricultural and small-town; its civic life revolves around the clubs, festivals, and church communities of the villages. For this region, the OZ is the daily paper of record.

History

The Oberhessische Zeitung's history begins on 1 January 1833, when the first issue of the Anzeigeblatt für Alsfeld und Umgebung appeared — the forerunner of today's paper. It was founded and published by Friedrich Martin Ehrenklau, who initially printed in a tobacco factory before moving the printing works into his own house. The printing house has remained in the family for five generations: Martin Ehrenklau, the current owner of the family business, now leases the building in which the OZ was once printed to the Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen, where the paper's editorial office is still located.

The paper thus carries nearly two centuries of continuous publishing history in Alsfeld — through the Grand Duchy of Hesse, the Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi period, and the Federal Republic. The family's five-generation stewardship of the printing house is one of the longest such continuities in the Hessian press.

The modern corporate history brought the paper into larger publishing structures. In 2014 the OZ was taken over together with the entire Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen by the VRM group (the Mainz-based Verlagsgruppe Rhein Main). Unlike the group's other papers, however, the OZ and the Lauterbacher Anzeiger initially remained with VRM when the group was sold to the Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft; on 1 January 2024 the publishing company took over these two titles as well, completing their integration into the Mittelhessen group. The OZ is today part of the Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen, which also includes the Gießener Anzeiger, the Kreis-Anzeiger, the Usinger Anzeiger, and the Gelnhäuser Tageblatt.

A note on the name: an entirely separate Oberhessische Zeitung was published in Marburg from 1867 to 1945 and from 1949 to 1951, founded by the Koch family; in 1951 it merged with the Marburger Presse to form the Oberhessische Presse. The Alsfeld paper is the surviving bearer of the name.

Coverage and Content

The Oberhessische Zeitung's content is built around the local journalism of the old Alsfeld district. Its local pages — produced by the Alsfeld newsroom — cover the Alsfeld town council and the Vogelsberg district council, the administrations of the district's municipalities, the local courts, police news, schools, churches, and the clubs and associations of the Vogelsberg villages. The paper reports on agriculture and forestry in the Vogelsberg highlands, on the crafts and small businesses of the market towns, on tourism in the volcanic region, and on the infrastructure questions of a rural district: transport, broadband, medical care, and village renewal.

The general section — national and international news, federal and Hessian state politics, business, and features — is supplied within the Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen and the Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft's shared production, giving the small Alsfeld newsroom access to coverage it could not produce alone. The paper supplements the daily with two advertising papers — OZ Extra and the Oberhessenkurier — and the monthly cultural magazine Auf dem Vulkan, extending its reach into the district's households and cultural life.

The OZ also serves the traditional functions of the rural local daily: comprehensive municipal reporting, family announcements, church news, club reports, and the court and police journalism that make the local paper the community's daily record. In a district where the paper describes itself as the largest local newspaper, its pages are the indispensable account of public life in the western Vogelsberg.

Organization and Ownership

The Oberhessische Zeitung is published by the Verlagsgesellschaft Vogelsberg GmbH & Co. KG, based at Am Kreuz 10, 36304 Alsfeld — the address that also houses the paper's editorial office, in the building leased from the Ehrenklau family business. The publishing company belongs to the Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft group and its Zeitungsgruppe Zentralhessen, which unites the Gießener Anzeiger, the Kreis-Anzeiger, the Usinger Anzeiger, the Gelnhäuser Tageblatt, the Lauterbacher Anzeiger, and the OZ.

The group's managing director is named in the paper's imprint as Dr. Jan Eric Rempel; the editor-in-chief as Siegfried Klingelhöfer. The paper is printed by the Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagshaus GmbH & Co. KG in Gießen. The five-generation Ehrenklau family connection survives in the building itself: the family's printing house, where the paper was produced for most of its history, now houses the newsroom as the family's tenant.

The ownership history — the 2014 VRM takeover, the delayed 2024 integration into the Mittelhessen group — reflects the consolidation of the Hessian regional press, in which small historic titles survive through integration into larger publishing networks. For the OZ, the arrangement preserves what matters to its readers: a staffed Alsfeld newsroom, daily local pages for the old district, and a masthead that has marked the town's journalism since 1833.

Digital Presence

The Oberhessische Zeitung's digital home is oberhessische-zeitung.de, the paper's website, which carries its local reporting with updates through the day and presents itself on social media as the source for everything important from the old Alsfeld district, Hesse, and the world. The site serves as the platform for digital subscriptions and the e-paper edition, alongside the print subscription.

The paper's digital strategy follows the pattern of small regional dailies within larger groups: the website draws on the group's shared digital infrastructure while the Alsfeld newsroom supplies the local journalism that distinguishes the OZ online. The paper maintains a social media presence through which its local stories — council decisions, club news, event announcements, police reports — circulate among district residents.

In the Vogelsberg's digital media environment, the OZ's portal competes with the online offerings of neighboring papers, municipal communications, and the growing array of local social media groups. The paper's advantage remains its newsroom: the Alsfeld journalists who cover the old district daily. A newspaper founded in 1833 — when its founder printed in a tobacco factory — now delivers the Vogelsberg's news to smartphones, from the same family building, under the same masthead, across nearly two centuries.