Neues Deutschland

Neues Deutschland

Neues Deutschland in 1953 on the death of "the greatest human being of our era, comrade J.W. Stalin"
Type	Daily newspaper (Monday-Saturday)
Format	Rhenish (Between broadsheet and Berliner)
Owner(s)	Neues Deutschland Druckerei und Verlags GmbH and Left Party
Publisher	???
Editor	Karl Maron (1946 - 1950) Jürgen Reents
Founded	1946
Political alignment	Democratic socialism Social democracy
Language	German
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Circulation	48,811
Website	neues-deutschland.de

Neues Deutschland (ND) (English: New Germany) is a small German daily newspaper. It was originally the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which governed East Germany (officially known as the German Democratic Republic), and as such served as one of the party's most important organs. More than the other newspapers in the GDR, ND not only endorsed all policy decisions of the government, frequently changing its editorial position to support the new party line, but also sought to elevate the prestige of each member of the leadership, perhaps most importantly Erich Honecker.

While the Neues Deutschland that existed in East Germany as an official newspaper of the regime had a circulation of one million and was the country's most important newspaper, the Neues Deutschland that exists today is a tiny newspaper with a much lower circulation of less than 5% of its former size. It currently has its headquarters in Berlin and retains a socialist outlook, but it has renounced its former stands. The newspaper is both politically and financially tied to The Left (PDS) (Die Linke), the successor party of the SED, which owns the publishing house and printing presses.

ND was formed in 1946 as a Lizenzzeitung after the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were forcibly merged to form the SED in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The first edition of ND was published on 23 April 1946 in conjunction with the founding of the SED. ND replaced the SPD organ Das Volk and the KPD organ Deutsche Volkszeitung. Karl Maron was the first chief editor of the daily and served in the post until 1950.