Status: 10/28/2021 12:08 p.m.
Read newspapers from several centuries online for free: The German Digital Library launches the “German Newspaper Portal” with numerous titles. The archive is to be continuously expanded.
Historical newspapers from 1671 to 1950 can now be viewed free of charge via a new online portal. That “German newspaper portal” starts with 247 digitized newspapers that span a period of almost three centuries, as announced by the German Digital Library in Berlin.
Oldest newspaper from 1671
The oldest copy is the “Il corriere ordinario” published in 1671, the latest edition is the “Badische Neuesten Nachrichten” of December 30, 1950. There are also curiosities such as the “Shanghai Jewish chronicle”, a German-language newspaper for Jews in East Asia, which appeared between 1939 and 1945.
Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters explained that the new newspaper portal would open up “the German Digital Library a fascinating access to our journalistic and thus at the same time cultural heritage”. There is now “direct access to authentic reports on countless historical events and developments since the 17th century”.
Libraries can participate
At the same time, it called on all libraries that have digitized archives of historical newspapers to make their holdings accessible via the new newspaper portal. According to the library, the offer is constantly being expanded. In the long term, the portal should make all digitized historical newspapers that are stored in German cultural and knowledge institutions accessible.
The offer therefore has an extensive search function. Users can find the newspapers by title, place of distribution or publication date and sort them according to various criteria.
Any keywords can be used to search for newspapers or in newspapers, individual issues or pages. The search results can be filtered by publication period or location, language or library. While the continuously enlargeable original image is displayed, research in the text is possible. Entire issues or individual pages are available for download.