The Berliner Tageblatt was first published by Rudolf Mosse as an advertising paper on 1 January 1872, but developed into a liberal newspaper.

On 3 March 1933, after the Reichstag fire, Rudolf Mosse's son-in-law, Hans Lachmann-Mosse, the publisher, dismissed editor in chief Theodor Wolff because of his criticism of the Nazi government and his Jewish ancestry.

He had been the first foreign journalist to be refused a re-entry permit into the Soviet Union in 1929 for his critical reporting on the five-year plan and prophecy of famine in Ukraine.

She wrote in 1960 that Scheffer "was hated from the beginning by leading people of the Propaganda Ministry, and it was only because of his excellent foreign connections that he was not relieved of his position in the early years of the regime".

Regular contributors to the feuilleton included Alfred Polgar, Fritz Mauthner, Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner, Robert Walser, Etta Federn, Otto Flake, Felix Hirsch and Frank Thiess.

From 1918 until April 1920, Kurt Tucholsky contributed 50 articles to the Berliner Tageblatt while he was also editor in chief of the satirical magazine Ulk, which appeared weekly between 1913 and 1933.

A number of these, such as "Technische Rundschau," a weekly review of trends in technology, and the "Haus, Hof und Garten" sections (Home and Garden), were edited by Rudolf Jonas.