Stern (magazine)

Stern (magazine)

Stern (English: "Star") is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to Media-Analyse.

Internationally, it is most famous for publishing the Hitler Diaries in 1983. These diaries were published in the 25 April edition, but they were soon revealed by scientific testing to be forged. The British broadsheet newspaper, the Sunday Times had also begun a serialisation of the diaries, which was abandoned, and issued an official apology.

This debacle led to the resignation of the magazine's editors and a major scandal that is still seen as a low point in German journalism. The incident caused a major crisis for the magazine. Its credibility was severely damaged and it had to rebuild its reputation from an abysmal level.

In Germany, it is also remembered for the publication of "We had an abortion!" in 1971, initiated by Alice Schwarzer. 374 women publicly declared that they had had an abortion in spite of its illegality at the time in West Germany.