The newspaper was founded by Eduard Mayer as a successor to the Wiener Journal. The first issue appeared on 10 March 1867, the year of the Compromise with Hungary and the enactment of the so-called December Constitution, valid until 1918. As early as 13 July 1867 the publisher
Moritz Szeps, who had left the Morgen-Post newspaper in a dispute, took over. From 1870 he supported Josef Schöffel with a campaign in his successful fight for the Vienna Woods. Szeps' connection to Crown Prince Rudolf meant that anonymous political texts by the crown prince could repeatedly appear in the paper, in which he advocated the liberal, progressive development of Austria. Szeps remained the sole owner and publisher of the paper until 15 May 1872, then contributed the paper to the Steyrermühl-Verlag publishing house, which he had co-founded in 1872, and remained the paper's publisher as a shareholder until 15 October 1886. From 1874 onward, the newspaper was Vienna's highest-circulation paper. It was German liberal and anti-Marxist, but did not develop a clear stance on the emerging mass parties of the Christian Socialists and the Social Democrats in the monarchy. In the First Republic, the paper published by the Steyrermühl Group became the political mouthpiece of
Rudolf Sieghart, the autocratic head of the Bodencreditanstalt, which Steyrermühl financed. The paper's line supported the Heimwehren and the policies of the Christian Social Party. This did not change even after the collapse of the Bodencreditanstalt in October 1929 and Sieghart's withdrawal. The newspaper welcomed the shutdown of parliament in March 1933, although it expressed concerns about the preservation of freedom of expression. == Expropriation and restructuring 1938 ==