So, just to clear this up, if you wanted to start a newspaper today, could you simply print out a few hundred copies of whatever you wanted to say and go out and sell it (or give it away) without any interaction with the government? (I don't know the answer for Germany; I'm genuinely curious. I hope the answer is "yes".)
Of course not without *any* interaction. You have to pay taxes if you earn money, and you are not allowed to do it anonymous. Everything must contain an address of someone responsible. In bigger papers you have an "impressum" in small papers and pamphlets you have a line like "responsible in the sense of press law: Joe Dalton" And of course you will get sued or accused if you write anything which violates law, but this depends on _what_ you are writing. But no one forbids to do produce a newspaper. Every school has a 'schoolpaper' (don't know how to translate well). Everyone who thinks he has to tell anything important prints anything on lots of paper at this University, in most cases political (often very left-wing) themes. Our 'Grundgesetz', the constitution (like "Bill of rights") says that there is no censorship. Everyone can tell his opinion in "Word, letter and image": Art. 5 (1) Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden gewährleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt. (2) Diese Rechte finden ihre Schranken in den Vorschriften der allgemeinen Gesetze, den gesetzlichen Bestimmungen zum Schutze der Jugend und in dem Recht der persönlichen Ehre. (3) Kunst und Wissenschaft, Forschung und Lehre sind frei. Die Freiheit der Lehre entbindet nicht von der Treue zur Verfassung. Hadmut