Guest authors included Alice Schwarzer, Günter Wallraff and Gerhard Kromschröder [de].
Among the first writers were Werner Finck, Wolfgang Bauer, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Martin Walser and Günter Grass.
The FAZ summarised later that pardon influenced the zeitgeist of its era, leaving a mark on post-war history ("Pardon hat unter Nikels Leitung mit dessen literarisch-satirischem Spürsinn 18 Jahre lang Einfluss auf den Zeitgeist der Republik genommen – eine markante Phase der Nachkriegsgeschichte.
")[1] pardon was for a while the most popular satirical magazine in Europe, reaching more than 1.5 million regular readers then.
Nikel ended his tenure in October 1980, leaving the pardon license to Hermann L. Gremliza of konkret, with chief editor Henning Venske [de].