Der Spiegel
"Say what is", the motto of Spiegel founder Rudolf Augstein, describes the standards Spiegel sets for itself. This motto is the driving force behind the editorial team. The news magazine has stood for investigative journalism for more than 75 years. The first issue was published in 1947, back then still in Hanover. SPIEGEL journalism is characterized by thorough research and reliable quality. Spiegel editors report independently of political, economic, ideological and religious interests, carefully and truthfully.
With its reporting, the editorial team of around 500 people uncovers grievances, sets the news, provides context in a complex world and sets the pace in public debate. It stands for investigative journalism. Its reach and journalistic standards make the DER SPIEGEL brand a highly trusted authority in the German media landscape.
Two years after it was founded, DER SPIEGEL published its statutes from 1949, providing a stable foundation on which the news magazine was able to build its reputation as a quality medium. At the end of 2018, the Relotius case shook the German media landscape. Journalist Claas Relotius, a renowned Spiegel reporter up to that point, was caught falsifying or inventing extensive information in numerous of his articles. This major journalistic scandal led to the development of the Spiegel standards in 2021, which are seen as a reaction to the Relotius case, but also as a contemporary return to the principles according to which the Spiegel editorial team works. At a time when the truthfulness of the media is being called into question, this is important in order to defend quality journalism, according to Spiegel. The publishing house and editorial team also developed standards for editorial projects financed by foundations as well as standards for advertisements, commercial partnerships and third-party funding.
Today, Der Spiegel has around 30 editorial offices in Germany and around the world. Around 60 fact-checkers in the documentation department also support the editorial offices of the Spiegel Group in their research and check finished articles. Their main task is verification and fact-checking. Spiegel-Dokumentation is also responsible for Digas, the Spiegel Group's press database with more than 100 million articles from German and international daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines, trade press and agencies. According to Spiegel, more than 10,000 articles are added every day.
Spiegel's paid circulation is 695,004 copies (IVW 2023, incl. e-paper). The weekly reach of the print edition and its digital counterpart is over 12 million people.
Although Der Spiegel has produced award-winning research and revelations in its more than 75-year history, there have been some epoch-making events and scandals that have often presented the publisher and editorial team with major challenges.
Alongside the Relotius case (2018), the most famous scandal in which Der Spiegel itself was at the center is probably the Spiegel affair of 1962. The scandal began when the magazine published an article questioning the Bundeswehr's readiness to defend itself. This led to raids on Spiegel's offices and the arrest of several editors, including the publisher Rudolf Augstein. The accusation was treason. The affair led to massive protests and is considered a decisive moment for press freedom in Germany. In 2013, Der Spiegel reported in detail on the systematic surveillance by the NSA, based on the revelations of Edward Snowden. The reports caused a worldwide stir and contributed significantly to the debate on privacy and state surveillance.
These scandals not only shaped the history of the magazine itself, but also triggered far-reaching discussions about freedom of the press, journalistic ethics and the role of the media in society. The quality medium lives up to its motto, "Tell it like it is", time and time again through such publications.
Audience Share
4.63%
Ownership Type
private
Geographic Coverage
national
Content Type
paid content
Media Companies / Groups
Spiegel Gruppe
Bertelsmann
Ownership Structure
Der Spiegel is published by SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG, which in turn is part of Rudolf Augstein GmbH. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, RM Hamburg Holding GmbH, the international media group Bertelsmann holds 25.5 per cent of the shares in the Spiegel Group. Bertelsmann is backed by the Mohn family. 24 per cent of the shares belong to the Augstein family, 50.5 per cent are held by the publishing house's employees via a holding company (Mitarbeiter-KG). This is democratically organised and regularly elects new representatives.
Voting Rights
The structure of voting rights within the Spiegel Group is unique in the European media landscape. The majority of voting rights are held by the Mitarbeiter-KG, which is made up of Spiegel employees. This means that the magazine's employees have a considerable influence on company decisions.
Individual Owner
General Information
Founding Year
1947
Affiliated Interests Founder
was born in Hanover on November 5, 1923. After graduating from high school in 1941, he worked as a trainee at the Hannoverscher Anzeiger. Following his traineeship, Augstein was drafted into the labor service and did military service from April 1942. In 1945, the wounded Augstein was briefly taken prisoner by the Americans. In 1945, Augstein began working as a journalist for the Hannoversches Nachrichtenblatt, which was licensed by the British military government. From 1946, he took over the Germany section of the news magazine Diese Woche. At the age of 23, Augstein became its publisher and editor-in-chief and renamed the magazine DER SPIEGEL with issue 1/1947.
From 1950 to 1962, he was publisher of Der Spiegel together with John Jahr. In 1962, the publisher and print shop owner Richard Gruner took over Jahr's position. Augstein and Gruner parted ways in 1969, with Augstein remaining the sole owner of Der Spiegel until Gruner + Jahr took a 25 percent stake in 1971. In 1974, Rudolf Augstein donated 50 percent of his company to the employees.
On October 26, 1962, the so-called Spiegel affair began with a search of the Spiegel editorial offices, which ultimately led to the fall of the then Federal Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauß. The reason was the Spiegel title "Conditionally ready for defense" about the NATO maneuver Fallex 62, in which Strauß suspected treasonous elements. The then editor-in-chief Claus Jacobi, publishing director Hans Detlev Becker and article author Conrad Ahlers were arrested; Augstein turned himself in to the police on October 27 and spent 103 days in custody. On May 14, 1965, the criminal proceedings against Augstein and Ahlers were dropped due to lack of evidence.
In 1972, Augstein accepted an offer from the then FDP chairman Walter Scheel and stood as a candidate in the Bundestag election in the Paderborn constituency against Rainer Barzel. He entered the German Bundestag via the NRW state list in November 1972, from which he resigned after three months at his own request.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Augstein published commentaries on politics in Adenauer's Germany under the pseudonym Jens Daniel; until his death in November 2002, he contributed critical commentaries and essays to exposing undesirable developments in democracy and society. He was particularly interested in historical contexts.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
(*1965) has been Chairman of the Management Board of Spiegel-Verlag since June 2020. He is also Managing Director of the companies DER SPIEGEL GmbH & Co. KG, SPIEGELnet GmbH, SPIEGEL Beteiligungsmanagement GmbH, Quality Channel GmbH, Ericus Beteiligungsmanagement GmbH, manager magazin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and manager magazin new media GmbH & Co. KG. Hass trained as an office and freight transport clerk. He has worked at Spiegel-Verlag since 1992, initially as Head of Sales Service in the Sales Marketing department from 1996. In 2001 he became Deputy Head of Sales Marketing, and in 2005 he took over as Head of Sales. In 2015, he became Managing Director of Spiegel-Verlag.
(*1976) has been Managing Director of Spiegel-Verlag since June 2020. He is also Managing Director of the companies DER SPIEGEL GmbH & Co. KG, SPIEGEL Tech Lab GmbH, Ericus Beteiligungsmanagement GmbH and 11FREUNDE Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. Ottlitz began his journalistic career in 1995 as a local reporter for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. From 1997 to 2001, he attended the German School of Journalism in Munich. He then worked as a political editor at the Abendzeitung, from 2004 to 2006 as part of the CvD team at the Financial Times Deutschland and then as chief editor, head of copy and managing editor at Spiegel Online. Ottlitz has been editor-in-chief of SZ.de since 2011 and a member of the editorial board of Süddeutsche Zeitung since 2014. In January 2018, he returned to Spiegel-Verlag as Head of Product Development.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
born in 1962, studied economics and worked for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit from 1990 to 1999. He then worked for Der Spiegel as a reporter, author, head of the Berlin office, and deputy editor-in-chief until 2018, when he returned to the Berlin office. He has been editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel since May 2023.
Contact
SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG
Ericusspitze 1
20457 Hamburg, Deutschland
Tel. +49 (0)40 3007-0
Fax. +49 (0)40 3007-2247
E-Mail: spiegel@spiegel.de
Webseite: www.spiegel.de
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
€ 267.0 Mio. (2022) / USD 281.2 Mio.
Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
€ 49.9 Mio. (2022) /USD 52.54 Mio.
Advertising (in % of total funding)
€ 31.0 Mio. (2021) / USD 32.6 Mio.
Market Share
Missing Data
Further Information
Meta Data
Audience share according to agma/ma press media. The average exchange rate from the year in which the source was published was used for the conversion from euros to US dollars.
