[14][15] In 1938 Franz Burda and partners acquired a major printing facility, Großdruckerei, Papiergroßhandlung und Papierwarenwerk Akademiestraße Gebrüder Bauer in Mannheim.

[17][18] As a forced seller, Berthold Reiss was obliged to find a buyer for the firm or face the appropriation of its assets and his personal destitution.

At the time Burda did not have sufficient capital to buy the business outright, so he paired with Karl Fritz, owner of Südwestdruck.

In 1933 he declared that his company had no Jewish employees or shareholders, although, preceding this statement in Sürag, advertisers of the National Socialist program guides NS-Funk and Der Deutsche Sender had claimed Burda did employ Jews.

[20] An unauthorised biography of the family, Die Burdas, characterised Franz's membership of the Nazi party as more financial expediency than political ideology.

In later official hearings Franz was held to be a Mitläufer, referring to those who were not charged with Nazi crimes but whose involvement with the Party was such that they could not be wholly exonerated.

[24][25] The publishing company's history during the Third Reich was described by Salomon Korn, a former Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, as a "case study for coming generations as to the question of guilt and conscience, of entanglement and dealing with the burden of this legacy".

[15] In the aftermath of the war, Franz Burda Sr single-handedly reached an agreement to pay reparations to the survivors and descendants of the shareholders from the Mannheim Bauer Printing Press.

[26] In 1954, Aenne Burda's company moved into new headquarters in Kestendamm in Offenburg, designed by the architect Egon Eiermann.

[35] In 1962, Burda acquired the majority of the Neue Verlags-Gesellschaft publishing company based in Karlsruhe, known for magazines such as "Freundin" and "Film Revue".

After he obtained a Ph.D. in Art History and completing various traineeships, Franz Burda initially put his son in charge of the Munich publishing house.

[38] The men's magazine "M", launched at the end of the 1960s with a million-DM advertising budget, was discontinued by Burda after 12 editions and extensive losses.

[32] Franz Burda Jr was responsible for the printing operations, while Frieder handled finances and administration and Hubert managed publishing activities.

[41] In 1983, the "Bunte" editorial staff moved from Offenburg to Munich,[42] to the newly built headquarters of the Burda Verlag at Arabellapark,[32] where the company still has an office.

[43] After numerous mergers and acquisitions, the printing and publishing operations evolved into a large corporate group, which was re-organized in 1986 and after the death of Franz Burda Sr.[44][45][46] The brothers, Franz and Frieder, took over all affiliate shares, including those in US printing houses, German paper factories and Austrian media distribution.

[56] At the time of the legal dispute with his brothers, revenues at Hubert Burda's publishing house went into decline[57] before improving at the end of the 1980s, particularly after the circulation of “Bunte" rallied again.

Established in 1993 by Hubert Burda and Helmut Markwort,[64] the magazine had 15,000 subscribers after five editions and reached a circulation of 300,000 sold copies.

[70][71] At the turn of the year 1994/1995, Burda consolidated its radio and TV shares and integrated them into the current profit centre structure.

[32] A corresponding sign was also installed at the Burda Media Park in Offenburg, which opened in 2000:[85] The new building was located on the site of the former Kinzig Stadium.

[87] In 2000, total operating performance of Hubert Burda Media exceeded 3 billion Deutsche Mark for the first time.

[88] In 2005, Hubert Burda Media initiated the international conference and innovation platform Digital Life Design (DLD).

[100] At the turn of the year 2009/10, Paul-Bernhard Kallen was appointed as new CEO of the Group,[101] with Hubert Burda remaining publisher and managing shareholder.

[103][104] Under Kallen's leadership the subsidiary Tomorrow Focus started up a German-language version of the news and discussion platform "HuffPost".

[105][106][107] In 2013 Hubert Burda Media acquired a majority in the web browser "Cliqz", in which the Mozilla Foundation also later invested.

[108][109] In 2016, a group subsidiary started "Thunder”, an open-source content management system that is also open to other media companies.

[127] The Group and its publishers are considered leaders in the media industry in terms of the development of digital business models.

[142] Another digital brand of Hubert Burda Media is Chip Online, one of the largest German-language editorial websites.

[153][154] Digital Life Design (or DLD for short) is the international conference and innovation platform of Hubert Burda Media.

[165][166] The concept originates from publisher Hubert Burda and founding editor-in-chief Helmut Markwort, assisted by Uli Baur.

[183] In 1998, Hubert Burda Media launched the German-language woman's magazine InStyle, licensing the product from US Time Inc. publishing company.