Stern
The weekly magazine was founded in Hanover in 1948 by the then 35-year-old Henri Nannen. In July 1948, he received permission from the British military administration to rename the youth magazine Zick-Zack, which he also published, as Der Stern and to turn it into a modern society magazine (in the style of the illustrated magazine Der Stern, published by Ullstein-Verlag from 1938 to 1939). Henri Nannen sold his publishing house, which had only been founded in 1948, in stages between 1949 and 1951 to the Hamburg publisher Gerd Bucerius and the print shop owner Richard Gruner. In 1965, the two Hanseatic natives, together with the publisher John Jahr senior, founded the Hamburg publishing house Gruner + Jahr, where Der Stern from Hanover found its new home and remains there to this day. The first issue of Der Stern was published in Hanover on August 1, 1948, at that time with the nickname Die illustrierte Zeitschrift für junge Menschen (as Der Stern was still called in its subtitle until issue 5). In 1950, the magazine was banned for a week by the British administration following an article on the Allies' wastefulness at the expense of the Germans. In the 1960s, Henri Nannen made the magazine more political and supported Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik with its content. In 1971, Stern was published with the then spectacular title: "We had abortions!", a campaign initiated by Alice Schwarzer. 374 women publicly admit to having an abortion. In 1978, journalists Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck interviewed the then 15-year-old Christiane Felscherinow for the Stern report "Babystrich". A short time later, these interviews resulted in the book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, excerpts of which were published by Stern. A political scandal was triggered in 1987 by the publication of a photo showing CDU politician Uwe Barschel, who was found dead in a bathtub by a Stern reporter in Switzerland. Stern's most controversial story was in 1983, which brought Stern international fame and the biggest credibility crisis in the history of the publishing house and magazine: the headline "Hitler's diaries discovered" appeared on Stern on April 28, 1983. In 2021, Gruner + Jahr becomes a subsidiary of RTL Deutschland and thus part of the listed RTL Group, in which Bertelsmann holds a majority stake. In 2023, the company is fully acquired by RTL. Following the merger of Gruner + Jahr and RTL, the industry portal Medieninsider reported on the increased media concentration at RTL under Gregor Peter Schmitz as editor-in-chief. For example, Stern published "a detailed report including the price scales" on the launch of the music offering at RTL+. Today, Stern covers political and social topics, offers useful journalism and classic reports, shows photo series and portrays celebrities. It is rated by journalists as one of the leading German-language media. With Stern.de, the magazine has also been represented online since 1995.
Audience Share
4.19%
Ownership Type
private
Geographic Coverage
national
Content Type
paid content
Media Companies / Groups
RTL Deutschland
Bertelsmann
Ownership Structure
The publishing house Gruner + Jahr, which publishes the magazine "Stern", is a wholly owned subsidiary of RTL Deutschland. The ownership structure of RTL Deutschland is a complex organisation made up of various shareholdings and corporate structures. RTL Deutschland's share capital is wholly owned by UFA Film und Fernseh GmbH, which in turn belongs to the listed RTL Group, one of the leading international media companies based in Luxembourg. The multinational media group Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA holds 76% of the shares in RTL Group and is itself controlled by the Bertelsmann Foundation (77%) and the Mohn family (19 %).
Voting Rights
The voting rights of the main shareholder (Bertelsmann) are wholly controlled by Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft (BVG). BVG is a body set up by Bertelsmann founder Reinhard Mohn to continue the company in its original spirit. Accordingly, the founding Mohn family is also the most strongly represented on the BVG Steering Committee (Dr Brigitte Mohn, Christoph Mohn as Chairman & Liz Mohn). All members have equal voting rights, with the exception of Liz Mohn, who has a veto right.
Individual Owner
Group / Individual Owner
Free float
17.9% of RTL Group S.A. shares are in free float and freely tradable on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
General Information
Founding Year
1948
Affiliated Interests Founder
(1913 to 1996) is one of the most influential German journalists of the 1950s to 1970s. Just one year after the Second World War, he founded his first daily newspaper in occupied Germany in Hanover: after a brief period as a US prisoner of war in 1945, he became one of the licensees of the Hannoversche Neueste Nachrichten in 1946 at the instigation of the British occupying power, and in February 1947 he also became a licensee and editor of the FDP-allied Hannoversche Abendpost. In the same year, he was classified as a "sympathizer" at his trial in Hanover and sentenced to 50 Reichsmarks in atonement. The decision was overturned in 1948.
In 1948, the first issue of Stern magazine, which he founded and ran as editor-in-chief and publisher until 1980, was published. Nannen shaped it into the most important magazine in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1965, editor Nannen dismissed his columnist and later Bavarian Minister President Franz Josef Strauß after just six months with an open letter. The accusation: Strauß had intrigued against the then Federal Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder.
Nannen grew up in lower middle-class circumstances and was the first member of his family to attend a grammar school. He soon gave up a bookselling apprenticeship after leaving school to study art history at the University of Munich. In 1937, he completed his studies without a degree and, after a short period working for the magazine Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, he worked as an editor for the magazine Die Kunst. Henri Nannen wrote articles for this and other periodicals in which he paid homage to National Socialist art policy and joined the Führer cult surrounding Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Nannen came to terms with the Nazi regime at all stages and was able to win over influential people such as the publisher Bruckmann and the director Leni Riefenstahl.
As editor-in-chief, publisher and co-owner of Stern (until 1951), Nannen was the magazine's central figure. It was characterized at the time by long photo series by important photographers, reportage and increasingly politics. In 1969, Nannen pushed through an editorial statute with the publishing house Gruner + Jahr which, among other things, significantly strengthened his position as editor-in-chief, whereupon Richard Gruner sold his shares in the publishing house he had co-founded. In the same year, Nannen became a member of the publishing house's board of directors, but continued to work for Stern as a chief editor. Nannen's dual role as editor-in-chief and co-publisher met with criticism from the editorial team. The editors, mainly members of the "68 generation", demanded more co-determination and critically questioned Nannen's role during the Nazi era. When Nannen terminated the editorial statute in 1978 and massively restricted the editors' opportunities for participation, his relationship with the editorial team was severely damaged.
On December 31, 1980, Nannen resigned from his position as editor-in-chief of Stern, and in 1983 he resigned as publisher - under the impression of Stern's biggest crisis: the purchase and printing of falsified "Hitler diaries" in April 1983. Nannen's role as a war propagandist during the Second World War led to another public debate in 2022.
Affiliated Interests Ceo
born 1980, is Managing Director at Gruner + Jahr. He trained at Gruner + Jahr as a publishing salesman. In 2005, he initially became an assistant to the Executive Board. In 2014, Hellermann took over the digital business of Gruner + Jahr's Family division under the management of Julia Jäkel, and later also the print business. He later became Managing Director of the publishing house. Since the takeover of Gruner + Jahr in 2022, Hellermann has been responsible for the print and digital businesses of RTL Germany.
born in 1982, is Managing Director of Gruner + Jahr. She holds a degree in business administration and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Media Studies. She began her career at the publishing house as a trainee in 2010. After working outside the company for a year, Laudage returned in 2017 as Digital Business Director Stern and Geo. In 2019, she took over as Digital Business Director together with Bernd Hellermann. In 2021, she is appointed to the Executive Committee of Gruner + Jahr. In January 2022, she takes over responsibility for the print and digital businesses of RTL Deutschland as Chief Publishing Officer and manages the merger of RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr as Chief Transformation Officer. In 2023, she will join the publisher's management board and, as Chief Product Officer, will set the course for successful brand and product development.
CFO and Chief Human Resources Officer of RTL Deutschland is a member of the Management Board of Gruner + Jahr Deutschland GmbH. Heisserer was previously CFO at L'Oréal until she joined RTL Germany at the end of 2022.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
born 1975, is Chairman of the Editorial Board of STERN, GEO and Capital. He is also responsible for the joint digital publication STERN+. The lawyer and political scientist with degrees from Cambridge and Harvard began his career as head of the Brussels office of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. He then spent six years as SPIEGEL's US correspondent in Washington before moving to Brussels as European correspondent. After heading the Berlin office of "WirtschaftsWoche," Schmitz spent four years as editor-in-chief of the "Augsburger Allgemeine," one of Germany's largest and most widely quoted daily newspapers. He has received numerous awards for his journalistic work, including the Henri Nannen Prize, the Theodor Wolff Prize, the Arthur F. Burns Prize and several "Editor-in-Chief of the Year" awards.
Affiliated Interests other important people
has been Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Stern since August 2014 (including as Head of News and Head of Website). She completed her traineeship at Westfalen-Blatt, working in print and online in between. Förster has an M.A. in political science, history and Nordic philology.
has been deputy editor-in-chief of Stern since 2022. Among other things, she is responsible for the digital future of Stern and in particular for the stern+ subscription service. She previously headed the magazine's foreign desk for eight years and reported from London as a correspondent for six years before that. She has been writing for the magazine since 1999 - at that time from Afghanistan, India, Egypt, Ethiopia and many other countries on the topics of human rights, refugees, health policy and, above all, the situation of women and girls.
is deputy editor-in-chief of Stern magazine.
is a member of the Stern editorial board.
is a member of the Stern editorial board.
Contact
Gruner + Jahr Deutschland GmbH
Sitz von Verlag und Redaktion:
Koreastraße 7,
20457 Hamburg, Deutschland
Postanschrift: Brieffach 18,
20444 Hamburg, Deutschland
Telefon: +49 40 3703-0
E-Mail: info@stern.de
Webseite: www.stern.de
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
Missing Data
Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
Missing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)
Missing Data
Market Share
Missing Data
Further Information
Headlines
Meta Data
The financial data of Gruner + Jahr, the publishing house in which Stern magazine is published, are not published in separate annual financial statements. They are included in the annual and consolidated financial statements of Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA.
