Der Spiegel bio

The first issue of Der Spiegel (“The Mirror”) was published on Jan. 4, 1947. It was published in Hanover and succeeded the journal Diese Woche (“This Week”). Diese Woche was originally sponsored by the British military government with the goal of communicating “objective news.”

The magazine was handed over from the British to Rudolf Augstein who became Chief Editor of the renamed Der Spiegel. The original circulation was originally 15,000 copies and was sold for higher than its cover price on the black market. In 1952, the magazine moved from Hanover to Hamburg. Der Spiegel gained widespread recognition for its commitment to investigative journalism when it published a story in 1962 about a low state of readiness in the German army. In response to the story, Federal Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauss had owner Augstein and several editors arrested and jailed. At the conclusion of the Spiegel Affair, Strauss was forced to resign.

Der Spiegel is often compared to American news magazines such as Newsweek and Time. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Der Spiegel contains “most likely the world’s largest fact checking operation” with approximately 80 full-time fact checkers as of Apr. 9, 2010. As of June 21, 2010, Der Spiegel had a weekly paid circulation of 1,009,966 copies and reaches 6.11 million readers.  The cover price is 3.80 euros and is published every Monday.

• Weekly Paid Circulation: 1,009,966 (as of June 21, 2010)
• Editors-in-Chief: Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Georg Mascolo
• Publisher: SPIEGEL-Verlag

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