Two years later, he took over the position as Editor-in-Chief from Bernd Ruland. In the years that followed, the magazine was shaped above all by Hubert Burda, who started out in 1974 as an editor at the Bunte. In July 1972, the Bunte Illustrierte first appeared under the abbreviated name of the Bunte.
#BURDA MAGAZINE 1958 SERIES#
The magazine attracted major attention, for example, with a photo series about the Iron Curtain. Beyond focus on high Society, in the 1960s the Bunte more and more frequently featured topics such as post-War rebuilding, cinema films and music. From then on, the publication was called Bunte Münchner Frankfurter Illustrierte. In addition, the publishing company bought the traditional Frankfurter Illustrierte in 1963, which was also merged into the Bunte. In 1960, the Münchner Illustrierte, with a circulation of some 500,000 copies, was added to the portfolio, so that the Bunte Münchner Illustrierte first surpassed the one million mark at the beginning of 1961. Acquisitions also played a role in the expansion of the magazine: In 1958, the Deutsche Illustrierte was taken over. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bunte developed into one of the most widely distributed German popular magazines. In 1954, Das Ufer changed its name to Bunte Illustrierte, reflecting a key element of large-format photo series in the center of the publication, which were already printed in color. Franz Burda had previously taken out a loan to purchase the photo copyrights (against the will of his family). In 1953, marking the coronation of Elisabeth II, a special issue was produced with a circulation of 100,000 copies. From the beginning, the magazine reported on a wide variety of events in society. Whereas the editorial section was initially provided by the French authorities, an independent editorial team emerged at the end of the 1950s. After the end of WWII, the French authorities commissioned ex-Nazi publisher Franz Burda to come up with an illustrated magazine and, following their request, he released the first edition in 1948 under the name Das Ufer.