Thüringer Allgemeine

Thüringer Allgemeine is part of Funke Medien Thüringen. Together with Ostthüringer Zeitung and Thüringische Landeszeitung, they form an editorial community. The newspapers, which have almost identical content, are published in the same format with only minimal differences in layout. In 1990, they were merged into the Zeitungsgruppe Thüringen newspaper group, which operated under the name Mediengruppe Thüringen (GmbH) until 2015. This merger has made them one of the regional newspapers with the highest circulation in Germany.

The newspapers emerged in 1990 from the former GDR newspapers Das Volk (Thüringer Allgemeine), Volkswacht (Ostthüringer Zeitung), and the Thüringische Landeszeitung. With the beginning of the reunification period, the newspapers, which had previously been controlled by the SED, declared themselves editorially independent and changed some of their titles.

The Thüringer Allgemeine (formerly Das Volk) led the way, changing its title and withdrawing its support for the SED in the 1990 elections. It was thus the first independent daily newspaper in the GDR. It was first published on January 16, 1990, as the Thüringer Allgemeine. The newspaper's employees founded an employee participation company, thereby creating the formal conditions for commercial independence. Due to outdated technology and increasing competition from West German newspapers, the Thüringer Zeitung joined forces with the Ostthüringer Zeitung and Thüringische Landeszeitung to form WOZ Verlag (predecessor of the Funke Mediengruppe).

As a result of the merger, the newspapers began to resemble each other more closely in terms of content. A staff strike at the printing plant in 2021 led to the three newspapers appearing in exactly the same format, with the same texts and all three logos. The increasing convergence thus revealed that these were uniform newspapers with only marginal differences in layout and local sections.