Freie Presse

From 1946 to 1989, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was the sole ruling Marxist- Leninist state party of the GDR, centrally controlling all areas of political, social, and cultural life. To enforce its ideology, it established a comprehensive media monopoly centered on the party's central organ, the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland.

In addition to Neues Deutschland, the SED published a district newspaper in each of the 14 districts of the GDR, which served as the organ of the respective district leadership. Among the best known were the Ostsee-Zeitung in Rostock, the Leipziger Volkszeitung in Leipzig, and the Sächsische Zeitung in Dresden. Together, these 15 district newspapers achieved a total daily circulation of around 4.7 million copies in 1977; in total, the SED press accounted for over 70% of the GDR's daily press circulation.

The SED controlled the press through the Press Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Agitation and Propaganda Department in the Central Committee, while the Central Printing, Purchasing and Auditing Company (ZENTRAG) controlled 90% of printing capacity. The content was strictly prescribed and served primarily to "guide socialist consciousness." Critical reporting was systematically excluded, and interviews and foreign reporting often had to be approved.

The daily newspaper offering was supplemented by mass organization newspapers such as the FDJ newspaper Junge Welt, the FDGB newspaper Tribüne, and tabloid newspapers such as the BZ am Abend. The high circulation figures were not the result of media diversity, but of state paper allocation and the price of only 10-15 pfennigs per issue, which meant that three out of four households subscribed to an SED district newspaper.

After the political change in 1989, the SED lost its monopoly position. Neues Deutschland was initially taken over by the successor party PDS, later became independent as a cooperative, and continues to be published today as a left-wing daily newspaper. The former district newspapers of the " " were privatized or discontinued. The SED itself was transformed into the PDS in 1990 and continues to exist today as part of the Die Linke party.

Daniel Daum has held management positions in the media industry in Germany and France for over 20 years. He has supported national and international media companies in implementing their monetization strategies, with a particular focus on digital subscription models. Most recently, he was managing director of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe and head of digital transformation, where he drove the strategic expansion of the digital business. As managing director, he is also responsible for the investment in markt.gruppe Holding GmbH, which bundles various classifieds portals.

Torsten Kleditzsch has spent his entire journalistic career at Freie Presse and has been editor-in-chief of the print edition since 2009. He is interested in security policy and the economic transformation of eastern Germany.