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The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt. During the Third Reich it was considered to be the only mass publication not completely controlled by the Reichspropagandaministerium under Joseph Goebbels.

After the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, the Frankfurter Zeitung became an important mouthpiece of the liberal bourgeois extra-parliamentary opposition. Even before 1914 and then during World War I it advocated peace in Europe.

During the period of the Weimar Republic the paper was treated with hostility by nationalist circles because in 1918 it had pronounced itself in favour of the Treaty of Versailles. 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, in which works of most of the great minds of the Weimar Republic were published.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis, several Jewish contributors had to leave the Frankfurter Zeitung, among them such famous people as Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin. At first the paper was protected by Joseph Goebbels, because it was convenient for propaganda abroad. In 1943 though the Frankfurter Zeitung was banned by Adolf Hitler.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung considers itself as a sort-of successor organisation, as many former journalists of the Frankfurter Zeitung helped to launch it after 1946.

When the famous German writer Hermann Hesse wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Jewish refugees in France accused him of supporting the Nazis. He did not openly oppose this.

• Theodor Adorno
• Walter Benjamin
• Franz Blei
• Alfred Döblin
• Lion Feuchtwanger
• Erich Kästner
• Editha Klipstein
• Annette Kolb
• Siegfried Kracauer
• Ernst Kreuder
• Heinrich Mann
• Thomas Mann
• Sandor Marai
• Franz Mehring
• Soma Morgenstern
• Alfred Polgar
• Joseph Roth
• Anna Seghers
• Heinrich Schirmbeck
• Dolf Sternberger
• Carl Zuckmayer
• Stefan Zweig