On 6 October 1945,[13][14] five months after the end of World War II in Germany, the SZ was the first newspaper to receive a license from the U.S. military administration of Bavaria.

[15] Bernard B. McMahon, commander of the US intelligence control system, had previously been looking for a long time for non-Nazi ("untainted") licensees for a new German daily newspaper.

[16] The founders announced, Süddeutsche Zeitung would "a mouthpiece for all Germans who are united in their love of freedom, in their hatred of the totalitarian state, in their abhorrence of everything that is National Socialist".

The Süddeutsche survived through a 150 million euro investment by a new shareholder, a regional newspaper chain called Südwestdeutsche Medien.

Over three years, the newspaper underwent a reduction in its staff, from 425 to 307, the closing of a regional edition in Düsseldorf, and the scrapping of a section devoted to news from Berlin.

The newspaper in conjunction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reviewed the data from the Panama Papers for over a year before publishing stories from it on 3 April 2016.

Süddeutsche Zeitung ended its decades-long collaboration with the cartoonist and apologized to readers, calling the cartoon a mistake.

[22] In German politics, the term liberalism is different from that in the United States, and like other European regions, it is a concept that encompasses both centre-right and centre-left.

[23][24][25] The paper, often abbreviated SZ, is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad.