The Ullstein Verlag was founded by Leopold Ullstein in 1877 at Berlin and is one of the largest publishing companies of Germany. It published newspapers like B.Z. and Berliner Morgenpost and books through its subsidiaries Ullstein Buchverlage and Propyläen.
The newspaper publishing branch was taken over by Axel Springer AG in 1956.
On 14 July 1877 Leopold Ullstein purchased the Neue Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, a subsidiary of the liberal Berliner Tageblatt published by Rudolf Mosse, and on 1 January 1878 converted it into the Berliner Zeitung (B.Z.). In 1894 he also acquired the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung weekly, which as technology advanced and permitted heavy use of photographs, became the most successful picture paper in Germany. The B.Z. am Mittag, relaunched in 1904, became Germany's first tabloid newspaper. On the other hand, Ullstein's sons on 1 January 1914 acquired the reputable Vossische Zeitung, a liberal newspaper with a tradition dating back to 1617, while the left-wing Berliner Morgenpost established in 1898 reached a high number of subscribers. From 1927 Ullstein also published Die Grüne Post weekly newspaper under chief editor Ehm Welk.
In 1919 the Propyläen Verlag (cf. Propylaea) was founded as an imprint for non-fiction books especially on history and art history as well as classical editions, but also for novels like Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front first published in 1929. The number of authors working for Ullstein also included Vicki Baum and Franz Blei.