About Potsdamer Tageszeitung

Potsdamer Tageszeitung

The Potsdamer Tageszeitung is the Potsdam local edition of the Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung (MAZ), the leading subscription daily of western Brandenburg. The name carries one of the longest newspaper traditions in the Brandenburg state capital: a Potsdamer Tageszeitung first appeared in 1901, growing out of the Potsdamer Intelligenz-Blatt of 1850, and was published by the Gerber family until its destruction in the Second World War. Today the title lives on as the name of the MAZ's Potsdam edition, which with around fourteen and a half thousand sold copies is the largest of the MAZ's thirteen regional editions. Published by the Märkische Verlags- und Druck-Gesellschaft mbH in Potsdam and owned since 2012 by the Madsack Mediengruppe of Hanover, it serves Potsdam and its surrounding communities with dedicated local journalism inside the broader MAZ package.

Overview

The Potsdamer Tageszeitung appears Monday through Saturday as the Potsdam edition of the Märkische Allgemeine, whose distribution area covers the western half of the state of Brandenburg. The MAZ as a whole publishes thirteen regional editions — among them the Brandenburger Kurier, Dahme Kurier, Der Havelländer, Dosse Kurier, Fläming Echo, Kyritzer Tageblatt, Luckenwalder Rundschau, Märkische Allgemeine Oberhavel, Prignitz Kurier, Ruppiner Tageblatt, Westhavelländer and Zossener Rundschau — with a combined sold circulation of 54,424 copies. The Potsdam edition, at 14,459 sold copies, is by a clear margin the largest single edition, underlining Potsdam's weight as the state capital and the MAZ's most important market.

The edition's circulation has declined steeply over the long term, falling by 67.3 percent since 1998, when it still sold over forty-four thousand copies — a trajectory shared by nearly all German regional dailies. Subscriptions account for 90.2 percent of the sold circulation, a high share that reflects the paper's traditional strength as a household subscription title. The Potsdamer Tageszeitung competes directly in the state capital with the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, the smaller Holtzbrinck-owned daily, and the two papers' rivalry shapes Potsdam's local media landscape. The MAZ draws its supraregional pages from the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the Madsack group's central editorial network, while the Potsdam newsroom produces the local and regional coverage.

History

The title's history begins in the mid-nineteenth century. On 22 September 1850 the first issue of the Potsdamer Intelligenz-Blatt appeared, printed by the Potsdam firm A. W. Hayn's Erben. On 1 January 1901 the paper was renamed the Potsdamer Tageszeitung. Its publisher at the time was the royal Prussian Kommerzienrat Curt Gerber (1855–1921); after his death his son Waldemar Gerber (1888–1968) took over the publishing house and the newspaper. In 1929 the paper reported a circulation of twenty-three thousand copies and described itself as the largest newspaper of the Havelland region. Politically it stood in the national-conservative tradition.

After the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, the paper struggled to preserve its national-bourgeois orientation, adopting the subtitle "Heimatzeitung für Stadt und Land" (homeland newspaper for town and country). It also attempted to protect its Jewish employees from persecution. Circulation rose to forty thousand copies by 1940, and the later Federal President Theodor Heuss wrote for the paper under a pseudonym after 1940. On 4 February 1945 the publishing house of A. W. Hayn's Erben was completely destroyed by bombing; the newspaper continued to appear in mostly four-page issues until heavy air raids on Potsdam on 14 and 15 April forced a suspension of several days. Two emergency one-page editions followed, the last probably on 20 April 1945, days before the Red Army entered Potsdam. In 1946 the company was placed under sequestration, and on 29 February 1948 the printing works, publishing house, bookshop, all real estate and buildings — including the Gerber family's private property — were expropriated and transferred to public ownership.

In November 1954 a newspaper of the same name reappeared, published from Speyer but printed in Berlin, with Waldemar Gerber as publisher. Appearing twice a month, it aimed, in Gerber's words, to build a bridge between Potsdamers and Brandenburgers in East and West. Its publication was discontinued with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

The modern chapter of the name began after reunification. The Märkische Allgemeine itself descends from the Märkische Volksstimme, first published on 18 April 1946 as the SED organ for the former administrative regions of Potsdam and Frankfurt, and renamed the Märkische Allgemeine on 3 October 1990. On 1 January 2012 the Märkische Verlags- und Druck-Gesellschaft mbH, the MAZ's publisher, was acquired by the Madsack Mediengruppe of Hanover from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung group, ending the FAZ era. Since then the MAZ's Potsdam local edition has carried the historic name Potsdamer Tageszeitung, reviving a title with roots going back to 1901 for the paper's flagship edition.

Coverage and Content

The Potsdamer Tageszeitung delivers the complete content mix of a German regional daily, anchored by its Potsdam local section. The local pages cover the Brandenburg state capital in depth: the city council and city administration, the state government and the Landtag seated in Potsdam, urban development, housing and transport in one of Germany's fastest-growing cities, the universities and the dense cluster of research institutes, and the cultural life of a UNESCO World Heritage city shaped by Sanssouci and its parks. As the MAZ's flagship edition, the Potsdam section also carries weighty coverage of state politics, complementing the regional reporting from the other twelve editions.

The regional scope extends across the MAZ's western Brandenburg distribution area, with the thirteen editions dividing coverage among districts from Oberhavel and Ostprignitz-Ruppin in the north to Teltow-Fläming and Dahme-Spreewald in the south. The supraregional mantle — national politics, business, culture and sport — is produced by the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, the Madsack central newsroom in Berlin, which supplies the MAZ and the group's other regional titles. The MAZ is regarded as the highest-reach subscription newspaper in the state of Brandenburg. Digital extensions include the maz-online.de website, the MAZ news app, the e-paper, newsletters such as the regional morning briefing "5in5" and the Brandenburg politics newsletter, and podcasts distributed across social platforms.

Organization and Ownership

The Potsdamer Tageszeitung is published by the Märkische Verlags- und Druck-Gesellschaft mbH (MVD), based in Potsdam, which has belonged to the Madsack Mediengruppe of Hanover since 1 January 2012. Madsack, one of Germany's largest regional media groups, holds its stake through its portfolio of regional publishers; the SPD's media holding company DDVG is in turn a significant shareholder of the Madsack group. The MVD employs between five hundred and one thousand people across its publishing, printing and media-sales operations, with its printing center in Potsdam producing the MAZ editions.

The editor-in-chief of the Märkische Allgemeine is Henry Lohmar, who succeeded Hannah Suppa; Suppa led the paper from July 2017 before moving in January 2019 to head the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland and take on group-wide digital transformation responsibilities. The management board includes Ingo Höhn and Adrian Schimpf. The Potsdam newsroom, the largest of the MAZ's local editorial offices, produces the Potsdamer Tageszeitung's local pages and coordinates coverage of the state capital, working within the MAZ's regional editorial structure and drawing on the RND for national and international content. Advertising and subscription marketing for the Potsdam market are handled through the MVD's media-sales organization and the MAZ Media Store.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Potsdamer Tageszeitung is maz-online.de, the website of the Märkische Allgemeine, where Potsdam local news appears alongside the regional and national coverage. The MVD describes itself as the leading regional news medium in Berlin and Brandenburg with a clear focus on digital relevance journalism, and its digital formats include the MAZ news app and e-paper, a portfolio of newsletters — from the "5in5" regional morning briefing to themed offerings on food, leisure and homebuilding — and podcasts distributed via Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X.

The digital strategy follows the Madsack group's group-wide push toward paid content and multimedia apps, with the MAZ participating in shared platforms such as OnePlatform, the Madsack publishing platform introduced at the MAZ in 2022. On social media the MAZ maintains active channels for its regional editions, extending the reach of Potsdam stories beyond the print circulation area. The combination of the historic Potsdamer Tageszeitung title, the MAZ's position as Brandenburg's highest-reach subscription daily, and the digital infrastructure of the Madsack group defines the edition's contemporary profile: a traditional local newspaper brand operating within one of Germany's most digitally ambitious regional media organizations.