Bertelsmann
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Bertelsmann headquarters in Gütersloh
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| Private (SE & Co. KGaA) | |
| Industry | Mass media |
| Founded | July 1, 1835 |
| Founder | Carl Bertelsmann |
| Headquarters | Gütersloh, Germany |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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| Products | Publishing, Record label, Broadcasting, Cable television, Movie production |
| Revenue |
 €17.141 billion (2015) |
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€1.108 billion (2015) |
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| Total assets |
€22.908 billion (2015) |
| Total equity |
€9.434 billion (2015) |
| Owner | Bertelsmann Foundation and others |
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Number of employees
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| Divisions |
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| Website | bertelsmann |
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Footnotes / references Annual Report 2015 |
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Bertelsmann is a multinational corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest mass media companies and also active in the service sector and education. Bertelsmann was founded as a publishing house by Carl Bertelsmann in 1835. After World War II, Bertelsmann, under the leadership of Reinhard Mohn, went from being a medium-sized enterprise to a major conglomerate, offering not only books but also television, radio, magazines and business services. Bertelsmann is an unlisted and capital market-oriented company, which remains primarily controlled by the Mohn family. Since 2016, major divisions of Bertelsmann are RTL Group, Penguin Random House, Gruner + Jahr, BMG, Arvato, Bertelsmann Printing Group, Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments.
The nucleus of the corporation is the C. Bertelsmann Verlag, a publishing house established in 1835 by Carl Bertelsmann in Gütersloh. Carl Bertelsmann was a representative of the "Minden-Ravensberger Erweckungsbewegung", a Protestant revival movement, whose writings he published. The C. Bertelsmann Verlag, originally specialized in theological literature, expanded its publications to include school and textbooks, and in the 1920s and 1930s increasingly entered into the field of light fiction. During the Third Reich, the publishing house gained a prominent position with its affordable "Bertelsmann Volksausgaben" ("people's editions"). In particular, war adventure books such as Werner von Langsdorff's "Fliegerbuch" on aviation were a commercial success. Heinrich Mohn belonged to the patrons' circle of the paramilitary Schutzstaffel organization and sought to turn his company into a National Socialist model enterprise. During World War II, the C. Bertelsmann Verlag became a leading supplier to the Wehrmacht, even surpassing the central publishing house of the NSDAP Franz Eher. Especially in the years between 1939 and 1941, the revenues of the C. Bertelsmann Verlag skyrocketed. Jewish slave laborers were not forced to work in Gütersloh, but in printing plants in Lithuania with which the C. Bertelsmann Verlag cooperated. In 1944, the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature) closed the publishing house to "mobilize all powers for victory". Another essential reason for this was criminal paper racketeering by some publisher's employees, which led to a trial in 1944.
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