De Waarheid

De Waarheid (literally 'The Truth') was the newspaper of the Communist Party of the Netherlands. It originated in 1940 under the German occupation as a resistance paper, the day after general H.G. Winkelman had forbidden publication of the earlier Communist Volksdagblad. The party decided on May 15, 1940, to continue the Volksdagblad illegally under the name De Waarheid. The first months were spent setting up a nationwide network of 'handout points' ('stencilposten'), the main articles would be written centrally, whereas the different 'handout points' added localized articles. These local versions sometimes were published under different names as 'De vonk' ('The spark') and 'Het noorderlicht' ('The northern light'). In the last decades it became a more independent left wing newspaper but circulation continued to drop and the paper was discontinued on 28 April 1990.

Circulation figures

 * 1945 (September): 341.550
 * 1947: 150.000
 * 1948: 135.000
 * 1950: 113.000
 * 1955: 50.000
 * 1960: 29.000
 * 1966: 22.000
 * 1968: 21.200
 * 1970: 20.000
 * 1975: 22.000
 * 1980: 26.000
 * 1985: 12.000
 * 1988: 9.000