Frankfurter Rundschau
Frankfurter Rundschau
Main page
2074227

Frankfurter Rundschau

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Frankfurter Rundschau

The Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The Rundschau's editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-war Germany Frankfurter Rundschau was for decades a leading force of German press. The newspaper was one of the first licensed by the US military administration in 1945 and had a traditional social democratic, antifascist and trade union stand.

Starting with the decline of printed daily newspapers in the 2000s, the FR changed ownership several times, reduced its editorial team dramatically and today has little national significance. Frankfurter Rundschau Druck and Verlagshaus GmbH filed for bankruptcy on 12 November 2012. Then the paper was acquired by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Frankfurter Societät (publisher of the Frankfurter Neue Presse) in 2013, by taking over just 28 full-time journalists. The FR editorial board continued to be bound by the legacy of Karl Gerold and the commitment to a "left-liberal" political line, and was integrated in the national and international editorial and correspondents network of the DuMont Mediengruppe, the former majority owners. The private foundation managing Karl Gerold's legacy still owns 10% of the shares. But all commercial activity of the paper, printing, selling advertisement and distribution was put in the hands of the Frankfurter Societät. The FR printing enterprise was closed. The contracts for printing BILD-Zeitung and other papers went from the FR's printshop to the FAZ's Societätsdruckerei.

On 1 April 2018, the Frankfurter Societät's ninety per-cent share was sold to Zeitungsholding Hessen, an investment vehicle of the publisher Dirk Ippen. In October 2021, Ippen blocked the publication by the Franfurter Rundschau of an investigative report on accusations of abuse of power made against former Bild editor, Julian Reichelt.

The Rundschau published its first issue on 1 August 1945 shortly after the end of World War II in Europe. It was the first newspaper published in the US sector in occupied Germany and the third newspaper in post-war Germany. The licence was handed over to the first team of editors consisting of Emil Carlebach, Hans Etzkorn, Wilhelm Karl Gerst, Otto Grossmann, Wilhelm Knothe, Paul Rodemann and Arno Rudert, a progressive think-tank of social democrats, political Catholics and communists, who had spent years in the resistance and Nazi concentration camps or in exile. With the coming of the Cold War, the American occupation authority forced all communist members of the editorial team to leave the paper two years later. In 1949 only Arno Rudert and Karl Gerold were left from the founding team. Gerold left SPD in the same year, to demonstrate his political independence.

Research by the Rundschau in the 1960s revealed, among other things, initiated the Auschwitz trials in Germany. At the end of the 1960s, the Frankfurter Rundschau uncovered the so-called HS-30 scandal. The German government only procured the HS-30 armored personnel carrier for the Bundeswehr because bribes had been paid to several responsible persons and illegal payments had been made to the CDU.

On 30 May 2007 the Rundschau changed its format to the award-winning smaller tabloid size.

The paper was awarded the European Newspaper of the Year in the category of judges' special recognition by the European Newspaper Congress in 2011.

In the 2013 elections the magazine was among the supporters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.