About Odenwälder Zeitung

Odenwälder Zeitung

The Odenwälder Zeitung is the Hessian-Odenwald edition of the Weinheimer Nachrichten, the local daily newspaper of Weinheim on the Bergstraße. Published for the Odenwald district of Hesse adjoining Weinheim, it appears as a variant of the Weinheimer Nachrichten with its own regional focus, produced by the DiesbachMedien GmbH publishing house in Weinheim. Together with its parent paper, it sells around 17,200 copies and serves the border region where Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and the Odenwald hills meet. Its general section comes from the Mannheimer Morgen's shared pages, while its regional and local journalism is produced by the Weinheim newsroom's own journalists and editors.

Overview

The Odenwälder Zeitung is a local daily newspaper published Monday through Saturday for the Hessian Odenwald — the part of the Odenwald low mountain range that lies in the state of Hesse, adjoining the Baden-Württemberg town of Weinheim. It is published as a variant (Variante) of the Weinheimer Nachrichten: the same newspaper in its essentials, with the edition's regional pages oriented toward the Hessian Odenwald communities rather than Weinheim itself.

The paper is published by the DiesbachMedien GmbH, the Weinheim media house that has published the Weinheimer Nachrichten since the 19th century. Together, the Weinheimer Nachrichten and the Odenwälder Zeitung sell 17,169 copies (IVW 4/2024, Monday to Saturday). The paper appears in the Rhenish format. The publisher of record is named as Heinrich Diesbach (deceased 2010), the long-time publisher of the Weinheim house. The group's digital portal is morgenweb.de — the "WN/OZ" online presence.

The paper's territory is the Hessian Odenwald adjoining Weinheim: the towns and villages of the Bergstraße district's Odenwald communities and the neighboring Odenwaldkreis — the forested hills, the half-timbered villages, and the small towns of the Hessian side of the range. Weinheim itself, the publishing town, sits at the western edge of the Odenwald on the Bergstraße, the historic route along the Rhine plain's eastern rim.

History

The Odenwälder Zeitung's history is the history of the Weinheimer Nachrichten' extension into the Hessian Odenwald. The Weinheim paper traces its origins to 1863 — the first issue of the Weinheimer Nachrichten appeared that year — and has been published by the Diesbach house through the decades under changing titles: Weinheimer Anzeiger, Weinheimer Morgen, Stadtanzeiger Weinheim, and the postwar Weinheimer Nachrichten. The paper's archive, preserved in the Baden State Library, documents the title's continuous publication through the 20th century, including the "Heimatbeilage für den Odenwald und die Bergstraße" — the homeland supplement for the Odenwald and the Bergstraße — that already in the early 1950s addressed the paper's Odenwald readership.

The Odenwälder Zeitung as a distinct edition grew out of that Odenwald orientation: the Hessian communities adjoining Weinheim — across the state border in the Bergstraße district and the Odenwaldkreis — formed a natural readership for the Weinheim paper, and the publishing house gave them their own edition under the Odenwälder Zeitung masthead. The DiesbachMedien GmbH of today presents itself as a modern media house with around 85 permanent employees, based in the heart of Weinheim, combining the two daily newspapers with digital offerings, a ticket shop for events and leisure, and the "Alte Druckerei" event venue.

Since 2007 the DiesbachMedien GmbH has held a 20 percent stake in the publisher of the Staatsanzeiger für Baden-Württemberg — a reminder that even small publishing houses participate in the institutional infrastructure of the regional press. The Odenwälder Zeitung itself has remained what it was created to be: the Weinheim paper's edition for the Hessian Odenwald.

Coverage and Content

The Odenwälder Zeitung's content combines the general section supplied by the Mannheimer Morgen's shared pages — national and international news, federal and state politics, business, and features — with regional and local journalism produced by the Diesbach newsroom's own journalists and editors in Weinheim. The edition's pages are oriented toward the Hessian Odenwald: the town councils and municipal administrations of the Odenwald communities, the district affairs of the Bergstraße district and the Odenwaldkreis, the local courts, police news, schools, churches, and the clubs and associations of the Odenwald villages.

The paper's territory gives its journalism a distinctive low-mountain-range profile. The Hessian Odenwald's economy rests on tourism — the hiking country, the half-timbered villages, the castle ruins — on forestry and agriculture, on crafts, and on the commuter flows toward the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region; the paper reports on the region's development, its infrastructure, and its cultural life. The border location adds a further dimension: the edition serves readers in two Hessian districts while being published in Baden-Württemberg, bridging the state border in its daily coverage.

The paper also serves the traditional functions of the local daily in a rural region: 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 the Hessian Odenwald, where the publishing landscape is divided among several regional papers, the Odenwälder Zeitung holds the Weinheim paper's position: the daily with its roots on the Bergstraße, written for the Odenwald across the border.

Organization and Ownership

The Odenwälder Zeitung is published by the DiesbachMedien GmbH, the Weinheim media house that publishes the Weinheimer Nachrichten and the Odenwälder Zeitung as its two daily newspapers. The company describes itself as a modern media house with around 85 permanent employees, based in Weinheim, and as a committed training company. The publisher of record is named as Heinrich Diesbach (deceased 2010).

The publishing house's portfolio extends beyond the two dailies: the digital and print media offerings are complemented by a ticket shop (Kartenshop) for events and leisure activities and by the "Alte Druckerei," an event venue with a publishing history of its own. The company's 20 percent stake in the Staatsanzeiger für Baden-Württemberg's publisher, held since 2007, connects the Weinheim house to the state's official gazette infrastructure.

The paper's production model is the classic small-publisher arrangement: the general section purchased from the Mannheimer Morgen's shared pages, the regional and local journalism produced by the house's own newsroom in Weinheim. The names of individual editors are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted; what is publicly documented is the daily output — the Weinheimer Nachrichten and its Odenwälder Zeitung variant, appearing every publishing day for the Bergstraße and the Hessian Odenwald.

Digital Presence

The Odenwälder Zeitung's digital home is morgenweb.de — the "WN/OZ" portal of the Weinheimer Nachrichten and the Odenwälder Zeitung — which carries the papers' regional reporting online. The DiesbachMedien group presents its digital and print offerings as an integrated portfolio: the portal, the e-paper editions, and the papers' social media channels, alongside the ticket shop and the event business.

The group's digital strategy follows the pattern of the small regional publisher: a freely accessible or subscription-based portal financed by online advertising and digital subscriptions, e-paper editions of the two dailies, and social media channels through which the Odenwald and Bergstraße stories circulate. For a publishing house of around 85 employees, the digital channels are the means of extending the papers' 1863 franchise into the online age without losing the local journalism that justifies it.

In the region's digital media environment — the portals of the Mannheimer Morgen, the Bergsträßer Anzeiger, and the Hessian regional papers, municipal communications, and the tourism marketing of the Odenwald and Bergstraße — the Odenwälder Zeitung's portal holds the Weinheim house's position: the daily paper of the Bergstraße and the Hessian Odenwald, in print since the 19th century and online at morgenweb.de.