History
After the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, the Frankfurter Zeitung became an important mouthpiece of the liberal bourgeois extra-parliamentary opposition. It advocated peace in Europe before 1914 and during World War I.
During the period of the Weimar Republic, the paper was treated with hostility by nationalist circles because it had pronounced itself in favour of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. At that time it no longer stood in opposition to the government and supported Gustav Stresemann's policy of reconciliation.
The Frankfurter Zeitung was one of the few democratic papers of that time. It was known in particular for its feuilleton, edited by Benno Reifenberg, in which works of most of the great minds of the Weimar Republic were published.
After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis, several Jewish contributors had to leave the Frankfurter Zeitung, such as Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin. Because it was convenient for propaganda abroad, the paper was initially protected by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. Dictator Adolf Hitler banned the newspaper in 1943.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung considers itself somewhat as a successor organisation to the Zeitung, as many former journalists of the Frankfurter Zeitung helped to launch it after 1946.
Read more about this topic: Frankfurter Zeitung
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