Völkischer Beobachter

In Nazi Germany, the main Party-endorsed newspaper was the Völkischer Beobachter. The title is usually translated as “People’s Observer”, because völkisch is derived from Volk, the German word for 'people' (which, however, can also mean 'nation', 'tribe', or 'race'). Neither this translation nor the sometimes used 'racialist' or 'folkish' are satisfactory because they do not convey the also implied mystical quality.

Its first publisher was Dietrich Eckhart, who died shortly after being freed from prison in 1923. Max Ammann, an early Nazi, becoming the party's business manager and head of its publishing house, Eher Verlag, in the next year, took over the newspaper control. He became president of the Reich Association of German Newspaper Publishers, establishing Nazi control over the industry, and reaping very large financial rewards.

There were additional specialized and often more propagandistic Nazi newspaper, such as Der Stürmer, an especially anti-Semitic and sensational publication of Julius Streicher, and Das Schwarze Korps, weekly organ of the SS.