Die Zeit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Type | Weekly newspaper |
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Format | Broadsheet |
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Owner | Zeit-Verlag Gerd Bucerius GmbH & Co. KG |
Editor | Giovanni di Lorenzo |
Founded | 1946 |
Political allegiance | centrist/liberal |
Headquarters | Speersort 1, 20095 Hamburg |
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Website: www.zeit.de |
DIE ZEIT (pronounced /diː tsait/, in English, literally The Time, more idiomatically The Times) is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism. With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper. The publishing house, Zeitverlag Gerd Bucerius in Hamburg, is owned by the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
The paper is considered to be highbrow. Its political direction is centrist to social liberal, but has oscillated a number of times between slightly left-leaning and slightly right-leaning. It is known for its very large physical size and its long and detailed articles.
The first edition was printed on February 21, 1946. The founding publishers were Gerd Bucerius, Lovis H. Lorenz, Richard Tüngel and Ewald Schmidt di Simoni. Another important founder was Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, who published Die Zeit from 1972 until her death in 2002, from 1983 onwards together with former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, later joined by Josef Joffe and former German federal secretary of culture Michael Naumann.
[edit] Trivia
The fact that the newspaper bears the coat of arms of the city of Bremen in its title stems from an accident of history: when the paper was founded in the rather chaotic post-war occupied Germany, the city of Hamburg refused the use of its coat of arms in a private publication at the last moment; so instead the space reserved for it on the printing plate was filled with that of the nearby city of Bremen, as one of the founders was a friend of the mayor of Bremen.