Der Morgen
Der Morgen (The Morning) was a daily newspaper published in the GDR. Der Morgen was the central organ of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany. It was published from 3 August 1945 on, six times a week. The premises of the first issue declared as its goal to become ‘’trumpet of the liberal democratic bourgeoisie’’.
During the Wende, it was the first newspaper in the GDR to renounce the dominance of the SED and to tolerate contributions and letters from readers, which treated critically the GDR system of the time. In February, 1990 Der Morgen became the first GDR newspaper which covered the Stalinist purges in Germany.
In July, 1990 the newspaper was taken over by Axel-springer-Verlag. From that time on, the editorial board included journalists from both East and West Germany, most of them had come from Der Spiegel or Tageszeitung. Under its new editor-in-chief, Der Morgen adjusted itself a new profile, and wrote a series of articles on the finances of PDS and the previous links of various politicians with Stasi. The editors Jan von Flocken, Erwin Jurtschitsch and Michael Klonovsky were awarded Wächterpreis der Tagespresse for their courageous ‘’uncovering and handling the human rights violations by the GDR justice’’.