After the occupation of Frankfurt by American troops on 29. March 1945, was to cut the city’s population more or less from the outside world. In the “Frankfurter Volksblatt”, the mouthpiece of the Nazi party, had attempted in the days before fanatical Hitler followers of the Frankfurt on a policy of “scorched earth” to galvanize. Then there was a week long, no more Newspapers. Written news about the war was received by the local population on to the 21. April: “Two-thirds of Germany, occupied”, announced the first edition of the “Frankfurter Presse”, which was published by the American army, however, in a small edition. In number three of this newspaper, the Frankfurter learned of the 3. May the death of Adolf Hitler, in a special edition on 9. May by the surrender of the Wehrmacht.
Already, preparations for the Foundation of the “Frankfurter Rundschau at that time were” in progress, the first regular newspaper in the American zone of occupation. Nearly three months after the end of the war, the Americans granted to seven German license for the publication of this daily newspaper. It was the social Democrats and the Communists, who had been persecuted because of their Opposition to the Hitler Regime, including as at the beginning, the most important interlocutor of the Americans, the social democratic municipal politician Willy Knothe, who withdrew in March 1946 from the “Frankfurter Rundschau”, in order to devote himself entirely to the policies of the country.
Before the age of 75 years, on 1. August 1945, appeared in the first edition. In the lead story was reported about the victory of the British labour party in the house elections, and the appointment of Clement Attlee as Prime Minister. Already days earlier in Frankfurt, the advertising posters had been glued to called in which a subscription of the sheet was: “1. August 1945 is published in Frankfurt a. Main, a new newspaper ,Frankfurter Rundschau‘.“ With the permission of the American military government, this sheet will published in German and managed, it said. “The new ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’ is the expression of our honest desire for democratic co-operation!”, let the editors, potential buyers know.
For a daily edition was missing at the beginning of the resource
Only twice in the week, the new paper appeared. Because for a daily edition, the resources were lacking at the time. “The main difficulty lies in the lack of Paper”, has been explained by the seven publishers and the readership. Your task is to saw the “Frankfurter Rundschau” that the Nazi Evil of the lie that had dominated in the past twelve years, Germany, a radical purge.
The new newspaper was first printed in the basement of the former company building of the “Frankfurter Zeitung”, where a few machines were still present. The editorial office was located in the house of the former “General-Anzeiger” on Schiller street. Just under nine months, the “Frankfurter Rundschau”, the only newspaper in the city and far beyond monopoly had. Only on 15. April 1946, the Americans allowed the “Frankfurter Neue Presse” a competitor: you should appeal to the bourgeois readers, who were with the heavily left-leaning “Frankfurter Rundschau” dissatisfied. The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, which regarded itself as the successor to the in August 1943, Hitler personally banned “Frankfurter Zeitung”, was released on 1. November 1949 with the first edition.
For two Newspapers was not enough paper available
So sparse were the times in 1946 that the Americans forced after the Foundation of the “Frankfurter Neue Presse”, the “Frankfurter Rundschau” to a reduction of its circulation to 65,000 copies, because there is not enough paper for two Newspapers was available. Witnesses tell of gripper commands in the city center, the then-incoming paper-trucks, each in the own printing house, to draw tried. After all, could appear in the course of the year 1946, the “Frankfurter Rundschau” three times a week, after the currency reform of 1948, finally, every day of the week.
