Die Zeit (, ) is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
The paper's publishing house, Zeitverlag Gerd Bucerius in Hamburg, is owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and Dieter von Holtzbrinck Media. The paper is published weekly on Thursdays.
As of 2018, Die Zeit has additional offices in Brussels, Dresden, Frankfurt, Moscow, New York City, Paris, Istanbul, Washington, D.C., and Vienna. In 2018, it re-opened an office in Beijing.
Lovis H. Lorenz was an art historian, journalist, and writer from Hamburg. He was granted a license by the British occupation authorities, which facilitated the founding of Die Zeit. His contributions to the newspaper are less documented, as he left the circle of partners at an early stage. His background in editing prior to the war provided essential experience for the newspaper's early development.
Marion Gräfin Dönhoff was a German anti-Nazi journalist and publisher who joined Die Zeit as an editor shortly after its founding in 1946. Dönhoff played a significant role in the 1944 assassination attempt against Hitler and became an advocate for German reconciliation with Eastern Europe. Dönhoff's contributions helped shape Die Zeit into a platform for liberal thought, and she remained influential in German journalism until her death in 2002. She played an essential role in shaping the newspaper's liberal stance and editorial direction, advocating for German reconciliation with Eastern Europe.
Ewald Schmidt di Simoni was a publishing salesman in the 1930s who was later banned from his profession because he was married to a Jewish woman. After the war he was granted a license by the British for his services, contributing to the establishment of Die Zeit.
Richard Tüngel was Hamburg's city planning officer until he was dismissed by the National Socialists in 1933. He co-founded Die Zeit and served as its second editor-in-chief. After publishing an article by Carl Schmitt, a former Nazi lawyer, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff resiged in protest. Bucerius ultimately decided to remove Tüngel from his position 1956.
Die Zeit often publishes dossiers, essays, third-party articles and excerpts of lectures of different authors emphasising their points of view on a single aspect or topic in one or in consecutive issues. It is known for its very large physical paper format (Nordisch) and its long and detailed articles.
The very first version of Czeschka's design, which included the Hamburg crest, was used from the first edition (published on 21 February 1946) to the 12th edition (published on 9 May 1946). Other than the official coat of arms this crest featured peacock's feathers with little hearts on them. Additionally, the position of the lions' legs first resembled those of the old great coat of arms. The positions were changed in 1952. Regardless of this tiny difference, the crest was viewed as the great Hamburg coat of arms by the Hamburg Senate and was therefore considered a national emblem. Upon this, the crest was revised: An open gate was supposed to be incorporated to represent the cosmopolitanism of the hanseatic city. However, the Senate also declined this version that was printed in editions 13 to 18, as it was viewed a misuse of a national emblem for commercial purposes, which is still prohibited to this day. To avoid another prohibition, Zeit Magazin changed its masthead on 27 June 1946, into the Coat of arms of Bremen: The key and the golden crown of the city coat of arms, which was approved by Wilhelm Kaisen, the mayor of Bremen. This happened as a result of the mediation from Josef Müller-Marein who later became the editorial director of Die Zeit. The design with the Bremer Schlüssel in its masthead was also designed by Carl Otto Czeschka and is used as the logo of the whole publishing group today. With the demand from Ernst Samhaber, the Hamburg artist Alfred Mahlau had created the whole first edition which had a five-column break. The edition was printed in the printing house Broscheck in Hamburg. At the same time, Czeschka had also drawn the headlines of the first edition for the different sections of the newspaper. The articles of Die Zeit and, especially the leading articles on the first page, are traditionally longer and more detailed than the ones of a daily newspaper. However, in the past few years many articles have been noticeably shorter and include more pictures. Since the redesign by Mario Garcia in January 1998, the headlines have been printed in Tiemann-Antiqua. The running texts are printed in Garamond, a font that is very frequently used in books.
Die Zeit did not join the discussion about the return of the traditional German orthography, which was led by Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bild. Starting in 1999, the newspaper used its in-house orthography which derived from the traditional orthography as well as from the different versions of the reformed orthography, which were edited by Dieter E. Zimmer. Since 2007, Die Zeit refrained from using the in-house orthography and started following the recommendations of the Duden. The nordisch format, a trademark of the newspaper, has always been addressed in literature and cabaret—mostly in satirical form. According to Hanns Dieter Hüsche Die Zeit is "so groß, wenn man die aufschlägt, muss der Nachbar gleich zum Zahnarzt" (). In reality however, the format is not bigger than that of a dozen other German newspapers. Die Zeit is printed by the Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei GmbH in Mörfelden-Walldorf. The Deutscher Pressevertrieb, based in Hamburg, is in charge of the distribution of the newspapers.
Since April 2014, Zeit Online has also been publishing a local section for Hamburg.
In a survey of German literature blogs, the literature section of Zeit Online was rated as the best portal, better than the literature section of Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, amongst others.
On 2 November 2012, Zeit Online launched a Content API which is available for software developers.
In January 2019, the website was visited 75.1 million times. On average, 2.34 pages were opened per visit.
Being part of the same publishing group, Die Zeit and Berliner Tagesspiegel decided to cooperate in September 2006. Since then, they have been exchanging and sharing some of their online content. Zeit has similar relationships with other German online news portals such as Handelsblatt and Golem.de.
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