The National-Zeitung (NZ, National Newspaper) was a weekly, far-right newspaper, published by Gerhard Frey, who also founded the far-right Deutsche Volksunion (German People's Union) as an association in 1971, turning it into a political party in 1987. The party was merged with the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). NZ was last published in December 2019.
The newspaper was first published in 1951 as the Deutsche Soldaten-Zeitung, came under Frey's control in 1959, was renamed Deutsche National-Zeitung und Soldaten-Zeitung in 1960–61 and Deutsche National-Zeitung in 1963. In 1999 the newspaper was merged with another of Frey's publications, the Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung – Deutscher Anzeiger, and became the National-Zeitung. It lasted under this name for 20 years until December 2019 when it stopped publishing.
The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the National-Zeitung as propagating a xenophobic, nationalist and revisionist world view.
Overview
According to the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the (Druckschriften- und Zeitungs-Verlag), publisher of the National-Zeitung, was, for a long time, the most important publisher of far right propaganda in Germany. The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the National Zeitung as propagating a xenophobic, nationalist and revisionist world view.
Content
The newspaper was critical of the scale of immigration to Germany, was critical of German rapprochement with Poland and of Israel, accusing the German government of subservience to the latter. It frequently used inflammatory language and tried to deflect from the German crimes during World War II by instead reporting on real or alleged German victims of the war.
Despite the stereotypical far-right content, the newspaper frequently reiterated its commitment to the German constitution. The newspaper also contained a large amount of advertising for Frey's former businesses, like Deutsche Reisen, a travel service, and the Deutsche Buchdienst, which sold books, medals and flags.
History
An earlier, unrelated, National Zeitung had existed in Germany from 1848 onward, as a liberal newspaper, published in Berlin. A Deutsche National-Zeitung was also published in German language in the United States from 1838 to 1840, in Philadelphia.
The National-Zeitung was first published as the Deutsche Soldaten-Zeitung (English: German Soldiers Newspaper) in 1951. The idea for a newspaper as an advocate for the rights of German soldiers originated in a prisoner of war camp in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and came from Nazi Kreisleiter Helmut Damerau and the Wehrmacht Colonel Heinrich Detloff von Kalben. It was supported by Waffen-SS General Felix Steiner and financed by Leo Giess, a carpenter, as well as German Americans.
The Deutsche Soldaten-Zeitung was an advocate of German rearmament but found itself in financial trouble by 1953, when financial support from the US dried up. Damerau approached the West German government for financial support and the newspaper received a monthly subsidy of DM 11,000 from 1953 onward. This however was not received well by the paper's readership, and the circulation of the Deutsche Soldaten-Zeitung dropped from 30,000 to 12,000. In 1954 the German government pushed for the sale of the paper, which Damerau refused and, consequently, the government dropped its financial support. The paper was subsequently only published fortnightly and, for a time in 1955, only monthly and shifted further to the right of the political spectrum.
The fifth anniversary of the first publication of the paper saw it print well-wishes from a number of high ranking former Wehrmacht Generals, among them the former Generalfeldmarschalls Erich von Manstein, Wilhelm List, Albert Kesselring and SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser of the Waffen-SS.
It called for and organised protests, like when German handball club THW Kiel hosted a team from Wrocław, Poland, because, in the paper's opinion Wrocław should be referred to by its former German name, Breslau. It protested against any form of recognition of the post-war Polish-German border, the Oder–Neisse line and attacked prominent German scientists like Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker for publishing the Memorandum of Tübingen (German:Tübinger Memorandum) in support of the border. The newspaper also supported the wife of Rudolf Hess in her attempts to free her husband.