The Frankfurter Rundschau is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. It is published every day but Sunday as a city, two regional and one nationwide issues and offers an online edition (see link below) as well as an e-paper. Local major competitors are the conservative-liberal Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the local edition of the conservative tabloid Bild-Zeitung, the best-selling newspaper in Europe, and the smaller local conservative Frankfurter Neue Presse. The Rundschau's layout is modern and its editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism.
Frankfurter Rundschau Druck and Verlagshaus GmbH filed for bankruptcy on 12 November 2012. Then the paper was acquired by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Frankfurter Societaet (publisher of the Frankfurter Neue Presse) in 2013, by taking over just 28 full-time journalists. The FR editorial board continues to be bound by the legacy of Karl Gerold and the commitment to a "left-liberal" political line, and continues to be 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 is in the hands of the 'Frankfurer 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'.
The Rundschau published its first issue on 1 August 1945 shortly after the end of World War II. It was the first newspaper published in the US sector in occupied Germany and the second 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.