About Westfalenpost

Westfalenpost

The Westfalenpost (WP) is a German regional daily newspaper for South Westphalia (Südwestfalen), published from a press house at Schürmannstraße 4 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its first edition appeared in 1946 in Soest — the paper's founding city — under a license from the British military government, and its current publisher is Funke Medien NRW GmbH, part of the Funke Mediengruppe (until 4 October 2013 the publisher was Westfalenpost GmbH & Co Verlags-KG). The paper's marketing motto is "Stimme der Heimat, Echo der Welt" — "Voice of home, echo of the world." Its editor-in-chief is Jost Lübben, who took over the role in early February 2015 from Stefan Kläsener. The paper made national headlines in 1980 when it rebuilt its own central editorial office — insisting, as the only WAZ paper in North Rhine-Westphalia, on keeping an independent national section rather than taking one from the group — and again in 2009 with its "Heimatzeitung für Südwestfalen" model, a home newspaper tailored to a rural region, launched in print on 21 September 2009. Its website is wp.de.

Overview

The Westfalenpost is the newspaper of South Westphalia — the Sauerland's forested hills, the Siegerland's industrial valleys, the land of half-timbered towns and Mittelstand factories, of the Biggesee and the winter sports of Winterberg. Its distribution area covers the city of Hagen and the districts of Olpe, Siegen-Wittgenstein, Soest (without a local edition for the city of Soest itself), the Hochsauerlandkreis, the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, and the Märkischer Kreis, served by 14 local editorial offices.

The paper's history is marked by contraction — the slow retreat from a broad Westphalian footprint to its South Westphalian core: local editions in Lüdenscheid, Altena, Paderborn, Büren, and the southern Ennepe-Ruhr district were discontinued on 1 August 1967; the local editorial offices in Iserlohn, Letmathe, and Hemer were given up at the end of 1989; the Werl and founding-city Soest offices closed on 1 July 2009; and in February 2019 Funke announced the discontinuation of the Warstein local edition.

In large parts of the Sauerland, the Westfalenpost is the only local daily newspaper — a single-paper district (Einzeitungskreis) — which gives it a special responsibility for local public discourse. Compared with its former sister paper, the Westfälische Rundschau, with which it appeared in parallel in most cities until 2009, the WP is considered the more conservative of the two.

History

A 1946 founding and the Ruhr Nachrichten connection

The Westfalenpost was founded in 1946 — in the British occupation zone's great year of newspaper foundings — and its early history was shaped by cooperation with its Dortmund neighbor. Since 1958 a contract existed with the Ruhr Nachrichten (RN) in Dortmund for an advertising and distribution partnership — and crucially, for the WP to take over all editorial pages of the RN except the local sections: the two papers shared everything but their local news. The contract ran for 15 years. From 1973 the national section with politics, business, and culture was sourced from the Kölnische Rundschau — the WP's journalism coming from Cologne while its identity remained Sauerland.

In 1980 the rebuilding of a central editorial office for the WP caused nationwide debates in journalism and publishing: the WP wanted, as the only WAZ paper in North Rhine-Westphalia, to keep an independent national section — refusing to take its politics, business, and culture pages from the group's central desk. According to the publisher, it was developing the special model of a "Heimatzeitung für Südwestfalen" (home newspaper for South Westphalia), implemented in the printed paper from 21 September 2009: a newspaper offering tailored to the specific conditions of a rural region, including its own national-section production. Local content was to be integrated even more strongly into classic national-section areas — on the front page or a partially localized children's page. The 1980 debate made the Westfalenpost a symbol: the small paper that insisted on thinking for itself.

The cartoonist

Through the Westfalenpost, Jürgen Tomicek became known: since the early 1980s he has delivered political cartoons for the paper almost daily, becoming one of Germany's most-printed caricaturists. His sharp-penned commentaries on Bonn and Berlin politics — drawn for a Sauerland audience but syndicated in spirit across the country — made the cartoonist as much a part of the paper's identity as its headlines.

Sixty years and a jubilee book

For its 60th anniversary in 2006, the paper published Expedition WP. 60 Jahre Westfalenpost, a 184-page anniversary volume documenting six decades of the newspaper's history — from the 1946 Soest beginnings under British license to the modern Funke era.

Content and Programming

The WP's content centers on South Westphalia: Hagen and the Sauerland districts, the Siegerland, local politics — from district councils to the mayors of the half-timbered towns — the region's Mittelstand economy (the hidden champions of the Sauerland), winter sports from Winterberg, and cultural life. The "Heimatzeitung" model integrates local content into the national section — the front page itself can carry Sauerland news, so that a reader in Olpe opens the paper to find their world on page one. The weekly rtv program magazine was included with the paper until its discontinuation at the end of 2023.

Coverage and Audience

The Westfalenpost serves South Westphalia — Hagen, the Sauerland, the Siegerland — a rural region with a strong sense of home, where local identity runs deeper than in the Ruhr's cities. Its readership is the classic Heimatzeitung profile: deeply local, loyal, subscription-based, the kind of readers who know their paper's editors by name.

Circulation tells the story of the German regional press in miniature. In the fourth quarter of 1999, the WP and its sister paper Westfälische Rundschau together distributed 236,092 copies in their coverage area; by the fourth quarter of 2025, combined distribution had fallen to 78,453 copies — a decline of 157,639 copies, or 66.8 percent. Funke reports the WP's circulation jointly with its sister papers rather than separately for the WP's own distribution areas, which makes the decline harder to trace title by title. The paper's insistence on its own national section reflects the region's self-confidence: South Westphalia does not want its worldview imported from Essen or Cologne. For readers, the WP is the paper that speaks their dialect of journalism — local first, but with its own take on the world.

Ownership

The Westfalenpost is published by the Funke Medien NRW GmbH from its Pressehaus at Schürmannstraße 4 in Hagen; its editor-in-chief is Jost Lübben, and its website is wp.de.

The Westfalenpost is part of the Funke Mediengruppe, published within the group's North Rhine-Westphalia operations alongside sister papers such as the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Thüringer Allgemeine. As the only former WAZ paper in NRW with an independent national section, it holds a special position in the group — a reminder of the days when every regional paper ran its own politics desk.

Digital Presence

The website wp.de carries the paper's regional journalism online, with continuously updated South Westphalia news, e-paper editions, and newsletters. The site operates with digital subscriptions within the Funke group's digital network, and its local reporting — from Hagen city politics to Sauerland village festivals — is the kind of coverage no national outlet provides. The paper is active on social media with Sauerland and Siegerland content, serving one of Germany's most locally rooted audiences today. The Westfalenpost's "Stimme der Heimat, Echo der Welt" promise — voice of home, echo of the world — remains its contract with South Westphalia, in print and online alike.