About Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung

Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung

The Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung is a German daily newspaper serving the town of Peine and the surrounding district in Lower Saxony, between Hanover, Brunswick, and Hildesheim. Universally known as the PAZ, it is one of the oldest newspapers in the region, with its first issue appearing on 21 June 1848. The paper is published by the Madsack Medien Ostniedersachsen GmbH and Co. KG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Verlagsgruppe Madsack of Hanover. Its sold circulation was 10,247 copies in the second quarter of 2025 according to IVW figures cited by German Wikipedia. The local section is produced in Peine by a newsroom of fifteen editors, while the supra-regional mantle pages come from the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland central newsroom in Hanover, and the paper is printed in Rodenberg. With Michael Lieb and Dany Schrader as editors-in-chief, the PAZ competes in the Peine district with the Peiner Nachrichten, the local edition of the Braunschweiger Zeitung, making Peine one of Lower Saxony's contested two-newspaper markets.

Overview

The Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung appears Monday through Saturday as the daily newspaper of the Peine district. Peine, a town of around fifty thousand inhabitants historically shaped by steel production, with the Peiner Traeger steelworks, and by its position in the triangle between Hanover, Brunswick, and Hildesheim, is the paper's home and the centre of its reporting. The circulation area covers the town and the district's municipalities, a region of agriculture, industry, and commuter communities oriented toward the three surrounding cities.

The readership is the classic Lower Saxon regional daily audience: municipal officials, industrial employees, farmers, craftspeople, retailers, and the members of clubs and associations. With a sold circulation of 10,247 copies, the PAZ is a mid-sized regional daily, and its competition with the Peiner Nachrichten gives the district's readers a genuine choice of daily newspapers, a rarity in the consolidated German regional press. The paper's website reaches around 1.3 million page views and 170,000 visits per month, extending its journalism well beyond the print circulation.

Distribution follows the traditional channels of subscription delivery and newsstand sales, and the publisher also issues the free Saturday advertising papers Hallo Wochenende Peine, Hallo Wochenende Salzgitter, Hallo Wochenende Gifhorn, and Hallo Wochenende Wolfsburg, extending its household reach. The print edition remains the PAZ's defining product, but the e-paper and paz-online.de serve digital subscribers. In a district where two dailies compete, the quality and speed of local journalism are commercially decisive, and the PAZ's 175-year tradition is its distinguishing asset.

History

The first issue of the Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung appeared on 21 June 1848, in the revolutionary year that saw the birth of many German newspapers. The paper chronicled the Peine district's history through the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, two world wars, and the postwar reconstruction, surviving as a local institution through all of Germany's twentieth-century upheavals. In October 2018 the PAZ celebrated its 170th anniversary with an eighty-page special edition, marking a publishing history that few German local newspapers can match.

In the modern era the paper became part of the Madsack media group of Hanover, one of Germany's large regional publishing houses. It is published by the Madsack Medien Ostniedersachsen GmbH and Co. KG, based in Peine, which also publishes the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung and the Aller-Zeitung and, since 1 January 2013, absorbed the Adolf Enke publishing company of Gifhorn. The MMO is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Verlagsgruppe Madsack, placing the PAZ within a group whose titles include the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, the Leipziger Volkszeitung, the Kieler Nachrichten, the Luebecker Nachrichten, and the Saechsische Zeitung.

The paper's production has modernized continuously: in 2010 the PAZ changed from the Nordic format to the smaller Berlin format, and since 2023 it has been printed in the Rhenish format at the group's printing facilities in Rodenberg. The local section is produced in Peine, while the supra-regional mantle comes from the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, Madsack's central newsroom in Hanover, which supplies the group's titles with national and international journalism. Around seventy employees work in the PAZ's publishing house, with the local newsroom comprising fifteen editors including two sports editors, a substantial local reporting capacity for a paper of its circulation.

Coverage and Content

The PAZ's local pages cover the Peine district in depth: the town council and the district administration, planning and construction, the steel industry and the district's manufacturing employers, the agricultural sector, local retail and services, schools and kindergartens, police and court reporting, and the clubs, volunteer fire brigades, church parishes, and cultural associations of the area. Peine's industrial heritage, from the historic steelworks to the modern logistics and manufacturing businesses, provides a distinctive economic beat, and the paper reports closely on the structural changes affecting the district's industry.

The commuter relationship with Hanover, Brunswick, and Hildesheim is a standing theme, with coverage of transport connections, housing development, and the district's efforts to position itself as a residential and business location between the three cities. Local sports coverage, from district league football to handball and the region's shooting clubs, and the calendar of town festivals, markets, and cultural events round out the local offering. The competition with the Peiner Nachrichten sharpens both papers' local journalism, with scoops and exclusive stories contested between the two newsrooms.

The RND-supplied mantle pages bring professional coverage of Lower Saxon state politics, German national affairs, business, culture, and sport, completing the full-service daily package. Supplements on education, careers, motoring, real estate, and health appear regularly. On paz-online.de, the paper's journalists publish continuously updated district news with photo galleries and video, and the website's 1.3 million monthly page views testify to the digital reach of the PAZ's journalism beyond its print circulation.

Organization and Ownership

The Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung is published by the Madsack Medien Ostniedersachsen GmbH and Co. KG of Peine, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Verlagsgruppe Madsack GmbH and Co. KG of Hanover. Madsack is one of Germany's major regional media groups, with economically consolidated stakes in titles across the country, and the MMO's portfolio includes the PAZ, the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, the Aller-Zeitung, and the free Saturday papers Hallo Wochenende Peine, Salzgitter, Gifhorn, and Wolfsburg. The editors-in-chief of the PAZ are Michael Lieb and Dany Schrader, and the managing directors are Lars Rehmann and Carsten Winkler.

The publishing house at Werderstrasse 49 in Peine employs around seventy people, with the local newsroom of fifteen editors producing the district pages. The supra-regional journalism comes from the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, Madsack's central newsroom in Hanover, which serves the group's titles with shared national and international coverage. Printing is handled in Rodenberg, and distribution serves the Peine district through the traditional subscription and retail channels.

Advertising for the PAZ is marketed both as a standalone district buy and in combination with the MMO's other titles and with the wider Madsack portfolio, offering local businesses targeted reach in the Peine district and regional advertisers broad coverage across eastern Lower Saxony. The competition with the Funke-owned Peiner Nachrichten, the Braunschweiger Zeitung's local edition, makes Peine a genuinely contested market, and the PAZ's local newsroom capacity, fifteen editors for a district paper, reflects the investment required to compete. The Madsack group's ownership provides the financial and technological backing for this competition.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung is paz-online.de, which reaches around 1.3 million page views and 170,000 visits per month, a substantial digital audience for a district daily. The website publishes continuously updated local news with photo galleries and video content, and subscribers can read the print edition as an e-paper replica through the iKiosk platform, which offers the digital edition with zoom, keyword search, bookmarks, and PDF download. Digital subscription models include digital-only access alongside print and combination bundles.

The PAZ maintains an active Facebook presence and other social media channels through which its local stories are distributed, and newsletters deliver curated briefings to readers. Mobile access provides the e-paper and live news on smartphones and tablets. Online contact channels connect readers with the Peine newsroom, and the website's local structure makes it easy to follow news from the town and the district's municipalities.

Technical support for the online offering comes from Madsack Online, the group's digital unit, giving the PAZ professional content management and multimedia technology. In the competition with the Peiner Nachrichten, the quality and speed of digital journalism are decisive, and the PAZ's investment in its online newsroom reflects this. The paper's digital strategy follows the Madsack group's direction: strong local editorial brands in print, supported by unified digital platforms and central technology, carrying a newspaper founded in 1848 into the digital age.