Neues Deutschland (nd; , sometimes stylized in lowercase letters) is a left-wing German daily newspaper, headquartered in Berlin. For 43 years it was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which governed East Germany (officially known as the German Democratic Republic), and as such served as one of the party's most important organs. It originally had a Stalinist political stance; it retained a Marxist-Leninist stance until German reunification in 1990. The Neues Deutschland that existed in East Germany had a circulation of 1.1 million as of 1989 and was the communist party's main way to show citizens its stances and opinions about politics, economics, etc. It was regarded by foreign countries as the communist regime's diplomatic voice. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Neues Deutschland has lost 98 percent of its readership and has a circulation of 17,186 as of 2021. Between 2019 and 2020 the number of sold copies and subscriptions declined 14.8 percent. Since 1990 the newspaper has changed its political outlook and now has a democratic socialist political stance. The newspaper was both politically and financially tied to one of its former owners, The Left (Die Linke), which owned the publishing house and printing presses until the end of 2021. Since 2022, the newspaper is published by a cooperative of staff and subscribers and officially named nd. East Germany ND was formed in 1946 as a Lizenzzeitung after the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were forcibly merged to form the SED in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The first edition of ND was published on 23 April 1946 in conjunction with the founding of the SED. ND replaced the SPD organ Das Volk and the KPD organ Deutsche Volkszeitung. Karl Maron was the first chief editor of the daily and served in the post until 1950. While Neues Deutschland was the SED's Zentralorgan, its journalists were recruited from the party's broad membership. Before the reunification of Germany in October 1990, ND had a circulation of a million and was second only to the youth newspaper junge Welt in readership. During this period the editor-in-chief of ND was Wolfgang Spickermann. However, it has been claimed that Neues Deutschland failed to reach much of the East German population. After reunification After reunification, ND'''s readership diminished greatly. In 2020, ND had a circulation of