About Täglicher Anzeiger

Täglicher Anzeiger

The Täglicher Anzeiger Holzminden is a daily regional newspaper published in Holzminden, Lower Saxony, and one of Germany's oldest newspapers, founded in 1777 by Johann Georg Herrenkind, the court printer of Corvey Abbey. Published Monday through Saturday by the Druck- und Verlagshaus Hüpke & Sohn Weserland-Verlag GmbH — a family publishing house — it serves the town of Holzminden and the surrounding Weserbergland district on the Weser river. With a sold circulation of around 6,300 copies, it is also the official gazette (Amtliches Mitteilungsblatt) of the town and district of Holzminden, the tax office, and other authorities. The paper is a partner in the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the national news network. Its website is tah.de.

Overview

The Täglicher Anzeiger (abbreviated TAH) covers Holzminden — with around 20,000 inhabitants, a town known for the Symrise fragrance and flavoring company, the oldest German building trade school, and its Weser Renaissance old town — and the surrounding Holzminden district in the Weserbergland hills. The paper appears Monday through Saturday, combining intensive local coverage with the supraregional pages supplied through its RND partnership.

Holzminden's economy is shaped by Symrise (one of the world's leading producers of fragrances, flavorings, and cosmetic ingredients), the building trade school tradition, tourism in the Weserbergland, and the Solling forest's timber economy. The paper's readership consists of the town's established households, local businesses, and the district's rural communities.

As the Amtliches Mitteilungsblatt, the paper carries official announcements from the town, the district, the tax office, and other authorities — an institutional role that underscores its centrality to local public life. The publishing house is located at Zeppelinstraße 10 in Holzminden.

History

The Täglicher Anzeiger was founded in 1777 by Johann Georg Herrenkind, court printer of the Imperial Abbey of Corvey, making it one of Germany's oldest continuously published newspapers — older than the French Revolution. From 1785, the weekly was printed as the Holzmindisches Wochenblatt; its early publishers included Theodor Christoph Grotrian of the Holzminden monastery school and — from 1786 — August Heinrich Raabe, the postal official who was the grandfather of the poet Wilhelm Raabe.

The paper went through several titles, including the Holzmindener Kreisblatt from 1797. From 1871, Carl Hüpke — printer and initiator — published the thrice-weekly Holzmindener Anzeiger as a competing paper; after several title changes it became the Täglicher Anzeiger, appearing even on Sundays. In 1908, under Hugo Hüpke, the family — which had acquired the Holzmindisches Kreisblatt — merged the two papers into the Täglichen Anzeiger Holzminden, uniting the town's press traditions under the Hüpke family's roof.

The paper's history includes dramatic episodes: in September 1923, it was briefly banned under the Law for the Protection of the Republic after the Brunswick press office filed charges over essays by the former minister-president Sepp Oerter. In 1943, the Nazis expropriated the paper, and the Niedersächsische Tageszeitung appeared in its place. Since 1949, the paper has appeared again in its old publishing house under its old name — resuming a tradition that now spans nearly 250 years. The paper celebrated its 225th anniversary in 2002.

Coverage and Content

The local section covers Holzminden's town politics, the district administration, and community news from the Weserbergland villages. Symrise — the town's largest employer and a global industry leader — is a constant presence in economic reporting, alongside the building trade school (one of Germany's oldest technical schools), the Symrise-affiliated businesses, tourism, and the forestry economy of the Solling.

The paper's official-gazette function means its pages carry the formal communications of local government: council decisions, public tenders, planning notices, and administrative announcements. This gives the TAH a documentary role beyond ordinary journalism.

Cultural coverage includes the Weser Renaissance heritage, the town's museums, and the Holzminden music school's activities. Sports reporting follows local clubs and regional leagues. Beyond the local pages, the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland supplies national and international news — the TAH's imprint names the RND partnership, with dpa and epd as news agencies — plus special interest pages and supplements.

Organization and Ownership

The Täglicher Anzeiger is published by the Druck- und Verlagshaus Hüpke & Sohn Weserland-Verlag GmbH, based at Zeppelinstraße 10 in Holzminden — a family publishing house that has owned the paper since the nineteenth century. Published sources name Constanze Mahnkopf, Gerlinde Mahnkopf, and Kuno Mahnkopf in connection with the publishing house's leadership; Kuno Mahnkopf has been identified as editor-in-chief.

The paper is a partner in the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the Madsack-group news network that supplies national content to regional papers across Germany. The local newsroom in Holzminden — with named editors including Christian Albroscheit (responsible), Thomas Specht, Uwe Engelhardt, and others — produces the town's local section, while the RND provides the supraregional pages. The paper is also a member of the mediakombi advertising combination.

Holzminden: Fragrance Town on the Weser

Holzminden's global significance far exceeds its size, and the Täglicher Anzeiger covers a town that the world knows through smell and taste. Symrise, headquartered here, is one of the world's three largest producers of fragrances, flavorings, and cosmetic functional ingredients — the scents in perfumes and the flavors in foods across the globe often originate in Holzminden laboratories. The paper's economic reporting thus has an international dimension unusual for a 6,300-circulation daily: Symrise's quarterly results, its research investments, and its global acquisitions are local news.

The town's other distinctions shape the paper's agenda: the building trade school founded in 1831, one of Germany's oldest technical schools, whose students come from across the country; the Weser Renaissance old town with its elaborately decorated half-timbered houses; and the Solling forest, one of northern Germany's great woodlands, whose timber economy and hiking tourism feature regularly. The Weser river itself — flooding, shipping, riverside development — is a constant theme. In a town where a fragrance multinational's decisions affect thousands of local jobs, the local paper's business coverage carries real weight.

A Newspaper Since 1777

With 6,281 sold copies, the Täglicher Anzeiger is a small but institutionally entrenched daily: as the official gazette of the town, district, and tax office, it reaches the desks of every local authority and many businesses as a matter of administrative necessity. This official function provides a stable foundation unusual for a paper of its size.

The paper's readership encompasses Holzminden's established households, the Symrise workforce, and the district's communities. There is no competing local daily in Holzminden. Like all German regional dailies, the TAH faces long-term circulation pressure — its circulation has declined significantly from the 10,494 copies reported in 2011 — addressed through the tah.de digital platform, e-paper editions, and digital subscriptions.

Few German newspapers have published since 1777. The Täglicher Anzeiger predates the steam press, the telegraph, and the German nation-state; it has appeared under absolute monarchy, Napoleonic occupation, the German Confederation, the Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, and the Federal Republic. Its archive — from the Holzmindisches Wochenblatt of the Enlightenment to the present — is a unique record of a small German town's encounter with world history. The Hüpke family's stewardship since the nineteenth century makes it one of Germany's last family-owned dailies, a continuity the paper itself treats as both heritage and obligation.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is tah.de, which publishes Holzminden local news alongside the paper's broader coverage. The site operates the standard regional press digital model with e-paper editions, and the paper maintains a Facebook presence at facebook.com/TAH.lokal. The RND partnership gives the small Holzminden paper access to professionally produced national digital content, while the local newsroom's stories serve the town's online audience. Digital subscriptions complement the print edition, which remains the paper's core product and the vehicle for its official-gazette function.