About Rolling Stone (German edition)

Rolling Stone (German edition)

Rolling Stone — the German edition of the American music and culture magazine, published from Berlin since 1994 — is Germany's leading music monthly: the magazine that brought the Rolling Stone tradition of long-form music journalism, cultural commentary and iconic photography to the German market, and the home of the German music press's most literary voices.

Overview

The German Rolling Stone is the licensed German edition of the American magazine launched in 1967 by Wenner Publishing — the magazine that invented modern rock journalism, from Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo reportage to Annie Leibovitz's iconic photography. Published in Germany since 1994, the German edition brought that tradition to the German market: the long-form interview, the critical list (the German edition has published its own canon-building features, including "Die 50 besten deutschen Alben" — the 50 best German albums), and the cultural authority that made Rolling Stone the reference for rock music worldwide. After a short-lived attempt from 1981, the magazine was established on the market with a second attempt in October 1994. It is published by the Axel Springer Mediahouse Berlin (since the editorial office moved from Munich to Berlin in 2010), alongside the former competitor Musikexpress and the rock magazine Metal Hammer. The editor-in-chief since 2012 is Sebastian Zabel; the magazine's website is rollingstone.de.

History

The German Rolling Stone has two beginnings. After a short-lived attempt from 1981 — with Klaus Böhler as publisher and Frank Steffan as editor-in-chief — the magazine was established on the market with the second attempt in October 1994. It appeared originally in the DRS-Verlag, founded specifically for this purpose. The publisher was the concert promoter Werner Kuhls; the editors-in-chief were Jörg Gülden and Bernd Gockel. The freelance contributors were already known from other publications — the German music press's established voices, gathered for the new title.

Arne Willander, who has belonged to the editorial team since the first issue, became particularly style-defining for the German edition — shaping its voice over three decades, from the 1994 launch through the Springer years to the Berlin present. One of the early editors was the later writer Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, who processed his time there in his 1998 debut novel Soloalbum — the German Rolling Stone as literary material, the music magazine as a scene in the defining pop novel of its generation. The Soloalbum connection captures the magazine's cultural position in 1990s Germany: the Rolling Stone editorial office as a station in the pop-literary biography, the music press as the training ground for the country's most visible pop writer.

In 2002, following disagreements between the parent publisher and the DRS-Verlag, the license edition was awarded to AS Young Mediahouse, a subsidiary of the Axel Springer AG. It appears there together with the former competitor Musikexpress and the rock magazine Metal Hammer — the German music press's leading titles, united under one roof (a threatened cartel lawsuit in this connection was averted). The consolidation was a landmark in the German music press: the country's three most important music magazines — the cultural monthly, the pop monthly, the metal monthly — published by a single Berlin operation. Since the editorial office moved from Munich to Berlin in 2010, the magazine has been published by the Axel Springer Mediahouse Berlin — the move from the Bavarian capital to the reunified capital mirroring the German music industry's own eastward shift. Bernd Gockel remained editor-in-chief initially — already sole editor-in-chief before the publisher change and after Jörg Gülden's departure; he was followed in 2010 by Rainer Schmidt, and since 2012 by Sebastian Zabel.

Content and Concept

The German Rolling Stone covers music, pop culture, film and politics with the long-form journalism the American brand pioneered: in-depth interviews, extended features, critical essays and the iconic photography that has been the magazine's visual signature since 1967. The German edition balances translated American content with German reporting — the international Rolling Stone perspective and the German music scene's own stories, from the Hamburg school to Berlin techno to the current indie landscape.

The magazine's literary quality distinguishes it in the German music press: the long-form interview, the critical essay, the cultural commentary that treats pop music as seriously as literature or film. The list features — the canon-building "best of" compilations, including the German albums ranking — give the magazine's criticism its durable form: the verdicts that outlast the news cycle. The German edition inherited the American magazine's ambition to be not just a music magazine but a cultural institution — the chronicle of its generation, in German.

Coverage and Audience

The German Rolling Stone appears monthly, in German, from Berlin, circulating also in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. Its audience is the culturally engaged music public: readers who follow rock, pop and alternative music with the seriousness of connoisseurs, plus the film and culture audience the brand's broader coverage attracts. The magazine's readership spans generations — from the readers who discovered it in 1994 to the younger audience finding it through the digital brand. The DRS-Verlag founding team — concert promoter Werner Kuhls as publisher, Jörg Gülden and Bernd Gockel as editors-in-chief, established freelance voices from the German music press — gave the 1994 launch immediate credibility: this was not a translated import but a German music magazine with the Rolling Stone license, built by the scene's own journalists.

Ownership

The German Rolling Stone is published by the Axel Springer Mediahouse Berlin — the AS Young Mediahouse operation, a subsidiary of the Axel Springer SE, Europe's largest newspaper publisher. Within the Mediahouse, Rolling Stone is published alongside Musikexpress (the former competitor, now sister title) and Metal Hammer (the metal monthly) — the Berlin music-magazine cluster that dominates the German music press. Sebastian Zabel has been editor-in-chief since 2012, leading the title from its Berlin newsroom.

The global Rolling Stone brand — founded in the United States in 1967 — is published under license in numerous countries, from Argentina (1998) and Australia to Japan (2007), India (2008) and Spain (1999), making it the most international music-magazine brand in publishing history. The German edition, established 1994, is among the brand's longest-running European licenses — three decades of German Rolling Stone, still published monthly from Berlin — the music-cultural monthly Germany reads, every month, in print and online.

Digital Presence

rollingstone.de extends the magazine's music and culture journalism online with daily news, reviews and features, competing with music blogs, streaming platforms and social media. The brand's digital operation benefits from the international Rolling Stone network, while the German site maintains its own editorial voice. The monthly print issue remains the brand's anchor — the long-form journalism, the photography, the physical object for readers who still believe the music magazine is a literary form.

From the 1981 false start to the 1994 establishment, from the DRS-Verlag to the Axel Springer Mediahouse Berlin, from Munich to Berlin: the German Rolling Stone has been the country's music-cultural monthly for three decades — the magazine that proved German readers wanted Rolling Stone's long-form journalism in their own language. Under Sebastian Zabel's editorship since 2012, the title continues its mission: music, taken as seriously as it deserves, every month, from Berlin. The American brand's 1967 founding vision — that rock music deserved the journalism of literature and the photography of art — remains the German edition's compass, three decades into its German story.