Munich is the capital and most populous city of the Free State of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, and thus the largest which does not constitute its own state, as well as the 11th-largest city in the European Union. The city's metropolitan region is home to 6 million people.
The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann, is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates and is also active in the service sector and education.
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
Ulrich Beck was a German sociologist, and one of the most cited social scientists in the world during his lifetime. His work focused on questions of uncontrollability, ignorance and uncertainty in the modern age, and he coined the terms "risk society" and "second modernity" or "reflexive modernization". He also tried to overturn national perspectives that predominated in sociological investigations with a cosmopolitanism that acknowledges the interconnectedness of the modern world. He was a professor at the University of Munich and also held appointments at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) in Paris, and at the London School of Economics.
Munich Re Group or Munich Reinsurance Company is a German multinational insurance company based in Munich, Germany. It is one of the world's leading reinsurers. ERGO, a Munich Re subsidiary, is the Group's primary insurance arm. Munich Re's shares are listed on all German stock exchanges and on the Xetra electronic trading system. Munich Re is included in the DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Euro Stoxx 50, and other indices.
Axel Springer SE is a European multinational digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as Bild, Die Welt, and Fakt and more than 15,000 employees. It generated total revenues of about €3.3 billion and an EBITDA of €559 million in the financial year 2015. The digital media activities contribute more than 60% to its revenues and nearly 70% to its EBITDA. Axel Springer's business is divided into three segments: paid models, marketing models, and classified ad models. Since 2020, it is majority-owned by the US private equity firm KKR. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, the company is active in more than 40 countries, including subsidiaries, joint ventures, and licensing.
S. Fischer Verlag is a major German publishing house, which has operated as a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group since 1962. The publishing house was founded in 1881 by Samuel Fischer in Berlin, but is currently based in Frankfurt am Main, and is traditionally counted among the most prestigious publishing houses in the German-speaking world.
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag. In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin. Suhrkamp declared bankruptcy in 2013, following a longstanding legal conflict between its owners. In 2015, economist Jonathan Landgrebe was announced as director.
Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH was the central publishing house of the Nazi Party and one of the largest book and periodical firms during the Third Reich. It was acquired by the party on 17 December 1920 for 115,000 Papiermark.
Akademie Verlag (AV) is a German scientific and academic publishing company, founded in 1946 in the Soviet-occupied eastern part of divided Berlin to facilitate the publication of works by and for the German Academy of Sciences Berlin.
The Carl Hanser Verlag was founded in 1928 by Carl Hanser in Munich and is one of the few medium-sized publishing companies in the German-speaking area still owned by the founding family.
The Heyne Verlag is a German publisher based in Munich, which was founded in Dresden in 1934 and sold to Axel Springer in 2000. In 2004 it became part of Random House. Heyne was one of the largest publishing houses in Germany in 1999.
Prestel Publishing is an art book publisher, with books on art, architecture, photography, design, fashion, craft, culture, history and ethnography. Lists range from museum guides, to encyclopaedias, art and architecture monographs to facsimile volumes and books for children.
The Süddeutscher Verlag (SV) is a corporate group that has emerged from the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The Albrecht Knaus Verlag is a German publisher of fiction and nonfiction based in Munich. It was founded in 1978 and is now part of the Random House publishing group. The publisher became known mainly through the works of Walter Kempowski.
As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, Cornelsen Verlag, Haufe-Gruppe, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Ernst Klett Verlag, Springer Nature, Thieme, WEKA Holding, and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall, "Germany has some 2,000 publishing houses, and more than 90,000 titles reach the public each year, a production surpassed only by the United States." Unlike many other countries, "book publishing is not centered in a single city but is concentrated fairly evenly in Berlin, Hamburg, and the regional metropolises of Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich."
Jochen Schmidt is a German author and translator. Initially, Schmidt gained popularity in Germany with his story “Harnusch mäht als wär’s ein Tanz” for which he was awarded the Open Mic Prize of the Literary Workshop Berlin. In 2007, he was a finalist for the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.
Nomos Publishing House is a scientific publisher focusing on law, the humanities, and social sciences. It is one of the prominent publisher of books and journals in those fields in German speaking world and is based in Baden-Baden. Nomos publishes over 60 journals which range from magazines for practitioners to also highly specialized scientific ones of which several are the leaders in their respective fields.
Buchmarkt is an independent specialist magazine founded in 1966 for the German-language book trade. It is published monthly, usually on the first Tuesday of the month. The subtitle of the magazine is Das Ideenmagazin für den Buchhandel.
The Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft in Leipzig was an important German academic publisher, which was founded in 1906.
