With thanks to our GHI librarian, Anna Maria Boss. — Editorial note, Href
Articles from historical newspapers typically play an important role in primary-source document collections in both printed and digital form. GHDI is no exception: it presently includes hundreds of texts from German newspapers dating from the early nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. During the course of the relaunch, scores of new German newspaper articles will be added to this existing base. Likewise, newspaper articles will feature prominently in the German History Intersections project.

Many German research libraries have recently completed ambitious newspaper digitization projects, often with the support of the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft or DFG). These projects offer new access to German historical newspapers and thus make it possible for students, scholars, and researchers from all over the world to work with these sources firsthand. To spread the word about these efforts, we recently asked GHI librarian Anna Maria Boss to point out some key newspaper digitization projects based in German libraries and other institutions. She recommended the following:
- The Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Bremen recently completed a DFG-funded project to digitize its collection of seventeenth-century newspapers: http://brema.suub.uni-bremen.de/zeitungen17
- The Universitäts- and Landesbibliothek Bonn has a digitization project for historical newspapers from the Rhineland. The project includes newspapers from the mid-1700s to 1945: http://digitale-sammlungen.ulb.uni-bonn.de/ulbbnz
- The German National Library in Frankfurt digitized a portion of its collection of exile newspapers (1933-1945): http://www.dnb.de/DE/DEA/Kataloge/Exilpresse/exilpresse_node.html
- The Staatsbibliothek Berlin digitized its Prussian political press collection (from the 1870s on) and three GDR newspapers as part of the ZEFYS Zeitungsinformationssystem project: http://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/en/ (Registration is required but is free and not limited to Germans.)
- A new portal offering access to digital copies of local and regional newspapers from North Rhine-Westphalia (from c. 1801 to 1945) was recently launched: https://zeitpunkt.nrw/ (It is still a work in progress, but new issues and titles will be added over time.)
- A digitized Bavarian newspaper collection is included as part of Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online: https://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/schwerpunkte#Zeitungen.
- Additionally, the Bavarian State Library digitized a large portion of its copyright-free newspapers (in partnership with Google): http://digipress.digitale-sammlungen.de/
- The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s “Gewerkschaftspresse” project includes newspapers published by German workers’ unions from the 1880s until 1933: http://library.fes.de/gewerkschaftszeitschrift/
For information on newspaper projects in other parts of Europe, two additional resources are useful:
- ANNO, the Austrian National Library’s newspaper digitization initiative, has a nice overview of other projects, including ones in Germany: http://anno.onb.ac.at/weitere_digipro.htm
- The European Library has a search portal for digitized historical newspapers in various European countries (including German-speaking Europe). The project is online but has not been updated since December 2016: http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/newspapers
Anna Maria Boss has been the head librarian at the GHI since 2016. She received her degree in library science from the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK) and worked as a librarian in various institutions of the German military, most recently as a reference librarian and information specialist, before coming to Washington.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Anna Maria Boß (April 20, 2018). Read All About It (Online)! Accessing Digitized Historical German Newspapers. h r e f. Retrieved March 18, 2025 from https://href.hypotheses.org/32