Nacht-Express

East German tabloid newspaper (1945–1953)

Nacht-Express
TypeDaily newspaper
PublisherExpress-Verlag, G.m.b.H
Founded7 December 1945
LanguageGerman
Ceased publication30 April 1953
CityEast Berlin
CountryEast Germany
OCLC number11992519

Nacht-Express was a daily tabloid newspaper published in East Berlin, East Germany, between 1945 and 1953. It was one of the five East German newspapers of which licenses were owned by non-partisan or non-official individuals.

History and profile

Nacht-Express was first published in Berlin on 7 December 1945.[1][2] Its license holder was a private individual who had no party affiliation or no governmental post.[3] Therefore, the paper was allegedly independent.[4] The publisher of Nacht-Express was Express-Verlag, G.m.b.H based in East Berlin.[1] The paper sold 250,000 copies in its first year.[5] Nacht-Express was an evening newspaper which focused on entertainment-oriented news.[2][3] It rarely covered public affairs and political news.[3] In the front page it featured world news which was taken from Soviet sources, British sources, Associated Press and United Press.[4] The paper had detailed sections for sports and for the fiction, criticism, or light literature.[2] Paul Wiegler was the editor of the latter section.[2]

Rudolf Kurtz was the founding editor-in-chief of the paper.[2] One of the contributors was Hannolore Holtz who wrote on cultural and entertainment news.[6] The paper ceased publication on 30 April 1953.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Catalogue. Nacht-Express". Library of Congress. Retrieved 9 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e Wolfgang Schivelbusch (1998). In a Cold Crater Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945–1948. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 166–168. ISBN 978-0520203662.
  3. ^ a b c Maryellen Boyle (1992). Capturing journalism: Press and politics in East Germany, 1945-1991 (PhD thesis). University of California, San Diego. pp. 80–81. ISBN 979-8-207-71090-7. ProQuest 303985575.
  4. ^ a b W. Phillips Davison (Spring 1947). "An Analysis of the Soviet-Controlled Berlin Press". Public Opinion Quarterly. 11 (1): 41, 46. doi:10.1093/poq/11.1.40.
  5. ^ H.W. Paul (February 1959). "Propaganda in the East-German Democratic Republic". Gazette. 5 (1): 61. doi:10.1177/001654925900500106. S2CID 145717879.
  6. ^ Deborah Barton (2019). "In the Presence of the Past, in the Shadow of the "Other": Women Journalists in Postwar Germany". In Karen Hagemann; et al. (eds.). Gendering Post-1945 German History: Entanglements. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books. p. 321. ISBN 978-1-78920-192-5.