The Online Archive of the Arbeiterzeitung of the Second Republic
Search approximately 215,000 digitised newspaper pages
Since autumn 2025, the free online archive of the historic Arbeiterzeitung has once again been publicly accessible. It contains issues of the Austrian daily newspaper published between 1945 and 1989 and is regarded as a unique digital newspaper archive of Austria’s Second Republic. Following an initial pioneering project that operated for nearly 17 years beginning in 2004, the archive has now been completely redeveloped from a technical perspective and enhanced with a modern full-text search function. Users can now conduct targeted searches across approximately 215,000 digitized pages.
Accompanying historical context
In addition to the archive itself, www.arbeiterzeitung.at offers a historical overview of the years 1945 to 1989, linked to relevant articles from the Arbeiterzeitung. The website also features photographs by AZ photographers Walter Henisch Sr. and Walter Henisch Jr., documenting major events and developments of the period.
A valued primary source, not only for academia
Today, the archive is widely used as a primary historical resource for research into contemporary history by school pupils, university students, researchers, journalists, authors, filmmakers, and anyone interested in history, both in Austria and internationally. Many users access the archive for personal reasons, to reminisce about events and people, or to gain an understanding of cultural developments. The open accessibility of the archive and its full-text search functionality not only provide an invaluable foundation for academic research, but also enable an authentic reconstruction of the social climate and everyday realities of the postwar decades.