NEW BRAUNFELS HERALD-ZEITUNG. The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, first known as the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, was one of the earliest German-language newspapers in Texas. The paper developed from efforts of local citizens to raise money by subscription for a press to advertise the town, attract immigrants, and enhance land values. It began weekly bilingual publication as the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung at New Braunfels on November 12, 1852, with Dr. Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer as editor. Carl Daniel Adolph Douai helped to raise money for the project, the title of which was subsequently changed to New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle after a merger with the Comal County Chronicle in 1954. When the New Braunfels Herald Publishing Company purchased the paper in 1957, the German section was dropped. In 1964 the New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle was published weekly on Sunday, and its sister publication, the New Braunfels Herald, first published around 1892, appeared weekly on Thursday. Each had a circulation of 5,000. In 1966 the New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle merged with the New Braunfels Herald to form the New Braunfels Herald and Zeitung, which was published weekly by Claude Scruggs until 1979. The paper was renamed the Herald-Zeitung in that year and published thereafter by the New Braunfels Publishing Company. Paid circulation in October 1970 was 7,705. From 1983 to 1986 a daily New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung also appeared. In the 1990s the paper, known as the Herald-Zeitung, with a circulation of 8,295, was published by David F. Kramer and edited by Wanda Lasater.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rudolph L. Biesele, The History of the German Settlements in Texas, 1831-1861 (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1930; rpt. 1964). T. Herbert Etzler, "German-American Newspapers in Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 (April 1954). Marilyn M. Sibley, Lone Stars and State Gazettes: Texas Newspapers before the Civil War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1983). Texas Newspaper Directory (Austin: Texas Press Service, 1991).
