Bunte (company's preferred spelling in capital letters) is a German-language weekly celebrity gossip magazine published by Hubert Burda Media.
[7] After the end of World War II, 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.
[9] 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.
[19] That same year, various editorial teams, including the Bunte, moved from main headquarters in Offenburg to the Bavarian state capital.
[20] In 1985, Burda-Verlag purchased from Rolf Mengele the handwritten notes of his father, Josef Mengele, which consisted of several thousand pages, for one million Deutsche Marks,[21] which resulted in the Bunte's publishing a series of articles on the notorious doctor from the Auschwitz concentration camp,[22] who was among the perpetrators of gruesome medical experiments on live human beings.
[25] His designated successor was initially Peter Boenisch,[26] who, however, already had to relinquish this position at the end of 1986,[27][28] among other reasons, owing to differences concerning the future direction of the publication and the losses into the millions incurred by the Bunte.
[32] After Wagner was forced to step down due to faltering circulation,[33] Axel Thorer was initially under consideration for Editor-in-Chief at the Bunte.
[32] Finally, however, Patricia Riekel took over the management of the magazine in January 1997,[34] and with the beginning of her tenure, the cover of the Bunte for the first time featured a politician, Gerhard Schröder.
[35] An additional example for this is the publication of Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping's vacation photos at a time shortly before Germany's armed forces, the Bundeswehr, faced a deployment abroad.
[36] Instead of nobility, Riekel put a spotlight on the so-called "new elites",[37] positioning the Bunte as a magazine for women with "time, money and a desire for high-end gossip.
In 1995, for example, Caroline, Princess of Hanover, won what up to that time was the largest-ever award for damages for pain and suffering in the history of the German press before the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg, because the Bunte had published a totally fabricated interview with her.
[62] The publication had run an article on a new car model and, as the German Press Council determined, exceeded the bounds of hidden advertising for the new product.
[63] In 2010, the magazine Stern published an exposé reporting that the Bunte had hired an external agency to spy on the private lives of certain politicians.
[64] As a result, one of the persons affected, the former SPD Chairman Franz Müntefering, publicly reprimanded the Bunte for its working practices.
[65] In 2011, prior to the beginning of the Kachelmann trial, the Bunte published an interview with the moderator's ex-girlfriend, who in exchange is said to have received remuneration of 50,000 Euros.