About Feuerwehr-Magazin

Feuerwehr-Magazin

Feuerwehr-Magazin is Germany's leading monthly magazine for firefighters, published by the Ebner Media Group of Ulm. Founded in December 1983 in Bremen by Hans-Peter Kortlepel, the magazine has served the fire service across the German-speaking world for over four decades with reportage from fire brigades, tactical and technical features, and the latest fire-service technology — the popular-specialist press of the men and women who run toward the fire. With an IVW-audited circulation of over 51,000 copies (Q1/2016), it reaches volunteer and professional firefighters — and the many "Blaulichtfans" (emergency-lights fans) who follow the fire service with enthusiasm.

Overview

Feuerwehr-Magazin appears monthly and covers firefighting, fire protection, and hazard prevention across the entire German-speaking region — Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The readership is the fire service itself: volunteer and professional firefighters, plus the Blaulichtfans who form the magazine's enthusiastic periphery — the hobbyists, collectors, and supporters who attend fire-service events, photograph emergency vehicles, and follow the brigades' work with passion. The ISSN 0943-027X marks the print edition; the current cover price is 6.50 euros (up from 5.50 euros in 2021 and 5.90 euros in 2022/23, tracking the general price development of the magazine market).

The IVW-audited figures from Q1/2016 — 51,021 sold copies, 51,355 distributed — made the title one of the largest fire-service publications in the German-speaking world. From the beginning, the magazine was offered by subscription and in retail, giving it a presence on newsstands as well as in fire stations — the dual distribution that built the title's mass reach: the subscriber in the brigade and the casual buyer at the kiosk, united by the fascination with the fire service. The September 2026 issue illustrates the editorial mix: the Innsbruck professional fire brigade as the cover story ("retter zwischen Fels und Fluss" — rescuers between rock and river), a 25-year retrospective on the September 11, 2001 attacks, interior-attack tactics, off-road Unimog-based rescue vehicles, and the Dömitz volunteer brigade's operations on land and water.

History

The magazine was founded in December 1983 in Bremen, when the first issue appeared from the newly established Kortlepel Verlagsgesellschaft — founder Hans-Peter Kortlepel's own publishing house, created specifically for the new title. The early 1980s were the era of the fire service's professionalization and the growing public fascination with emergency services; the Feuerwehr-Magazin gave the German fire service its own popular-specialist press — a magazine that treated firefighters as the heroes of everyday life while taking their professional knowledge seriously. In December 1995 the editorial team launched the sister title Rettungs-Magazin (bimonthly), extending the brand into the rescue services.

Since January 1, 1996, both titles have been published by the Ebner Media Group in Ulm (Karlstraße 3, 89073 Ulm; until 2019: Ebner Verlag). The Kortlepel Verlag was initially continued as a branch of the Ebner Verlag but was eventually liquidated — the founder's house absorbed into the larger media group. The editorial office, long based in Bremen, was moved to Ulm in 2025 — ending more than four decades of Bremen editorship and consolidating the title at the publisher's headquarters, a symbolic move that brought the magazine home to the publisher that had owned it for nearly thirty years. The editor-in-chief is Matthias Hendrich.

Coverage and Content

The editorial formula combines fire-service reportage with practical expertise. Brigade portraits — from the Innsbruck professionals in the alpine terrain, with their special challenges of mountain rescue between rock and river, to the Dömitz volunteers operating on land and water — showcase the diversity of the fire service: the professional brigades of the cities, the volunteer brigades that form the backbone of German fire protection, the plant fire brigades, the special units. Tactical and technical features address the core of firefighting work: interior attack (recognizing the situation before it tips), off-road vehicles, high-voltage incidents, and the evolving challenges of modern firefighting.

Special issues deepen the coverage: dedicated editions on fire stations (Feuerwehrhäuser — the architecture and equipment of the modern fire station), renewable energies (the fire-service challenges of solar installations, battery storage, and wind turbines), and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) hazards — the special threats that demand special preparation. The "Aus den Wehren" (from the brigades) rubric publishes reader contributions — the fire service writing about itself, with submission forms inviting brigades to send their stories, making the magazine a participatory medium rather than a top-down publication. Digital content complements the print: videos, downloads, and e-learning courses, including photography courses for fire-truck photography — serving the enthusiast community's passion for documenting emergency vehicles — and downloads on topics from fire-service tattoos to off-road driving training and rescuing people from combine harvesters. Pocket cards with deployment schemes for aerial rescue vehicles provide the practical takeaway: the knowledge from the magazine, condensed into the format that fits in the uniform pocket.

Organization and Ownership

Feuerwehr-Magazin is published by the Ebner Media Group GmbH & Co. KG, Karlstraße 3, 89073 Ulm (info@ebnermedia.de) — a specialist media house for the fire-service and rescue sector, whose portfolio serves the emergency services across the German-speaking world. The founder, Hans-Peter Kortlepel, established the title in Bremen in 1983; since 1996 the Ebner group has been the publisher, carrying the founder's creation into its fifth decade. The editor-in-chief is Matthias Hendrich. The sister title Rettungs-Magazin (bimonthly, since December 1995) shares the editorial infrastructure, extending the brand from the fire service into the rescue services with the same popular-specialist formula.

The magazine's economics combine subscriptions and newsstand sales (6.50 euros per issue) with advertising from the fire-service equipment industry — the vehicle manufacturers, protective-gear suppliers, and technology companies that target the fire service's decision-makers, from the municipal procurement officer to the brigade's equipment manager. The special issues, e-learning courses, downloads, gift subscriptions, and collector's binders diversify the revenue beyond the monthly issue. Circulation figures beyond the stated IVW numbers and financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, feuerwehrmagazin.de, is the digital home of the brand, offering digital editions for smartphones, tablets, and PCs alongside the print subscription. The customer service (kundenservice@ebnermedia.de, phone +49 731 88005-8205, Monday to Thursday 9:00–17:00, Friday 9:00–15:00) handles subscriptions, downloads, and the magazine's products. The digital shop sells special issues, e-learning courses, downloads, gift subscriptions, collector's binders, and the pocket cards with deployment schemes — the complete Feuerwehr-Magazin universe, from the monthly issue to the training material.

The title is sold through the magazine trade's online channels (such as meine-zeitschrift.de), where current issues are presented with cover lines and content highlights — the September 2026 issue with its Innsbruck cover story and 9/11 retrospective, the back issues with their Scania and Ziegler cover stories, each documented with article numbers, weights, and publication dates. For a magazine whose readership spans the professional fire service and the enthusiast community, the digital strategy serves both: the professional's need for current technical knowledge and the fan's enthusiasm for the fire service's world — the videos for the learners, the photography courses for the documentarians, the pocket cards for the practitioners. After more than four decades — from the Bremen founding of 1983 to the Ulm editorship of today — the Feuerwehr-Magazin remains the German-speaking fire service's popular-specialist journal: the magazine that has accompanied firefighters from the analog era to the digital age, issue by issue, brigade by brigade, from the first Kortlepel issue to the current Ebner Media Group editions.