Der Spiegel (German pronunciation: [deːɐ ˈʃpiːɡəl], lit. "The Mirror") is a German weekly news magazine^[1] published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.^[2][3]

Overview[link]

The first edition of Der Spiegel was published in Hanover on Saturday, 4 January 1947. Its release was initiated and sponsored by the British occupational administration and preceded by a magazine titled, Diese Woche (This Week), which had first been published in November 1946. After disagreements with the British, the magazine was handed over to Rudolf Augstein as chief editor, and was renamed Der Spiegel. From the first edition in January 1947, Augstein held the position of editor-in-chief, which he retained until his death on 7 November 2002.

After 1950, the magazine was owned by Rudolf Augstein and John Jahr; Jahr's share merged with Richard Gruner in 1965 to form the publishing company Gruner + Jahr. In 1969, Augstein bought out Gruner + Jahr for DM 42 million and became the sole owner of Der Spiegel. In 1971, Gruner + Jahr bought back a 25% share in the magazine. In 1974, Augstein restructured the company to make the employees shareholders. All employees with more than three years seniority were offered the opportunity to become an associate and participate in the management of the company, as well as in the profits.

Since 1952, Der Spiegel has been headquartered in its own building in the old town part of Hamburg.

In 1994, Spiegel Online was launched.

Der Spiegel is similar in style and layout to American news magazines such as Time or Newsweek. In terms of the breadth and amount of detail in its articles it is comparable to The Atlantic Monthly. It is known in Germany for its distinctive, academic writing style and its large volume—a standard issue may run 200 pages or more. Typically, it has a content to advertising ratio of 2:1.

As of 2010^[update], Der Spiegel was employing the equivalent of 80 full-time fact checkers, which the Columbia Journalism Review called "most likely the world's largest fact checking operation".^[4]

Development[link]

new Spiegel headquarters since 2011, Hamburg

old Spiegel headquarters, Hamburg

Der Spiegel's circulation rose quickly. From 15,000 copies in 1947, it grew to 65,000 in 1948 and 437,000 in 1961. By the 1970s, it had reached a plateau at about 900,000 copies. When the German re-unification in 1990 made it available to a new readership in former East Germany, the circulation exceeded one million. The magazine's influence is based on two pillars; firstly the moral authority established by investigative journalism since the early years and proven alive by several impressive scoops during the 1980s; secondly the economic power of the prolific Spiegel publishing house. Since 1988, it has produced the TV programme Spiegel TV, and further diversified during the 1990s. Among other things, Spiegel Verlag now publishes the monthly Manager Magazin.

Reception[link]

When Stefan Aust took over in 1994, the magazine's readers realised that his personality was different from his predecessor. In 2005, a documentary by Stephan Lamby quoted him as follows: "We stand at a very big cannon!"^[5] Politicians of all stripes who had to deal with the magazine's attention often voiced their disaffection for it. The outspoken conservative Franz Josef Strauß contended that Der Spiegel was "the Gestapo of our time". He referred to journalists in general as "rats".^[6] The Social Democrat Willy Brandt called it "Scheißblatt" (i.e. a "shit paper") during his term in office as Chancellor.

Der Spiegel often produces feature-length articles on problems affecting Germany (like demographic trends, the federal system's gridlock or the issues of its education system) and describes optional strategies and their risks in depth.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

Investigative journalism[link]

Der Spiegel has a distinctive reputation for revealing political misconduct and scandals. It merited recognition for this as early as 1950, when the federal parliament launched an inquiry into the Spiegel's accusations that bribed members of parliament had promoted Bonn (rather than Frankfurt) as the site of West Germany's government.

During the Spiegel scandal in 1962, which followed the release of a report about the possibly low state of readiness of the German armed forces, minister of defence and conservative figurehead Franz Josef Strauß had Der Spiegel investigated. In the course of this investigation, the editorial offices were raided by police while Rudolf Augstein and other Der Spiegel editors were arrested on charges of treason. Despite a lack of sufficient authority, Strauß even went after the article's author, Conrad Ahlers, who was consequently arrested in Spain where he was on holiday. When the legal case collapsed, the scandal led to a major shake-up in chancellor Konrad Adenauer's cabinet and Strauß had to stand down. The affair was generally received as an attack on the freedom of the press. Since then, Der Spiegel has repeatedly played a significant role in revealing political grievances and misdeeds, including the Flick Affair.

The Spiegel scandal is now remembered for altering the political culture of post-war Germany and — with the first mass demonstrations and public protests — being a turning point from the old Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian state) to a modern democracy.

In 2010, the magazine supported WikiLeaks in publishing leaked materials from the United States State Department, along with The Guardian, The New York Times, El País, and Le Monde.^[12]

Editors-in-chief[link]

• 1962-1968: Claus Jacobi
• 1968-1973: Günter Gaus
• 1973-1986: Erich Böhme and Johannes K. Engel
• 1986-1989: Erich Böhme and Werner Funk
• 1989-1994: Hans Werner Kilz and Wolfgang Kaden
• 1994-2008: Stefan Aust
• 2008–2011: Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Georg Mascolo
• 2011–2011: Georg Mascolo

See also[link]

	Hamburg portal
	Journalism portal

• List of non-English newspapers with English language subsections

References[link]

External links[link]

• Der Spiegel, printed edition
• Der Spiegel cover gallery and archive since 1947
• Spiegel-Mobil (Mobile Website, E-Paper, App)
• SPIEGEL TV Magazin (German)
• Spiegel Online (German)
• Spiegel Online International (English)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

Theatre of Tragedy was a Norwegian band from Stavanger, active between 1993 and 2010. They are best known for their earlier albums, which influenced the gothic metal genre.

Biography[link]

Theatre of Tragedy was founded on 2 October 1993. Drummer Hein Frode Hansen had recently quit his former band Phobia and started looking for a new musical project to play in. A friend of his told Hein that a band called Suffering Grief was looking for a new drummer, and after contacting them, he joined the band. At the time, Suffering Grief was composed of vocalist Raymond István Rohonyi and guitarists Pål Bjåstad and Tommy Lindal. No bassist had joined the band yet, but Eirik T. Saltrø had agreed to play with them in live concerts.

After finding a rehearsal place, the band decided to work upon a couple of piano arrangements composed by Lorentz Aspen. The vocals, at the time, were mostly entirely composed by raw death grunts.

After composing their first song, "Lament of the Perishing Roses", the band changed its name to La Reine Noir and then to Theatre of Tragedy. They subsequently invited singer Liv Kristine Espenæs to do female vocals for one song, but quickly invited her to join the band permanently.

In 1994, their first studio demo was recorded, and in 1995, the debut album Theatre of Tragedy was released, followed by Velvet Darkness They Fear in 1996 and the A Rose for the Dead EP in 1997, which contained unreleased material from Velvet Darkness They Fear. Arguably, the band reached the apogee of its career in 1998, with the release of the critically acclaimed album Aégis.

Released in 2000, Musique was a massive departure from the gothic metal sound that Theatre of Tragedy had developed over the previous three albums. The heavy guitars and Early Modern English lyrics were replaced by electropop and industrial-influenced metal. It was met with a very mixed reception, and while some older fans were understandably shocked by the new direction of the band, it did gain them a number of new fans.

With 2002's Assembly, the band continued along the same musical path as on their previous album. It was seen as a more refined and confident electropop record than its predecessor. It was also the first album to feature their long-time session guitarist, Vegard K. Thorsen, as a full member of the band.

Liv Kristine former member of TOT

In August 2003, the band declared in an official statement^[1] on their website, that Liv Kristine was removed from the band's line-up due to "musical differences which could not be bridged".

Female singer Nell Sigland (from The Crest) joined Theatre of Tragedy on the following year. In winter 2004/2005 a short concert tour (together with Pain, Sirenia and Tiamat) with Sigland singing was performed.

The band released their sixth studio album Storm on March 24, 2006 and a European tour followed, with Gothminister as supporting act. The album's title song was released as a single on February 24, 2006. While still keeping on the industrial and electronic roots of the last two albums, the album showed a return to some of the sounds developed in their first albums.

On 2 October 2008, Theatre of Tragedy celebrated their 15th anniversary. In December 2008 the band posted a snippet of new track "Frozen," which was expected to be on the new album, on their MySpace music page:

"Time for some updates. Things are slowly moving forward with the next album. As usual with the Theatre machinery there is many things to take into consideration when doing stuff and recently we were forced to change collaborators for the production of the album, and postpone the recordings. But fear not the heavy responsibility has been entrusted to Alexander Møklebust (Zeromancer, Seigmen, Gåte, Monomen, Delaware etc) and the ToT crew will enter Room 13 in May and June for recordings and general mayhem! Estimated release from AFM is end of September. Rumor has it that there will be a vinyl version for the diehard fans. We will keep you posted."

In June 2009 saw the band reveal Forever Is The World as the title of the new album. Their 7th album, it was released in Europe on 21 September 2009, with the band making a step towards their earlier sound of Aégis. A special Tour Edition of Forever Is The World was issued on March 12, 2010. The Tour Edition contained a bonus CD known as the "Addenda EP" which contains song reworkings and unreleased tracks.

Metal Mind Productions issued a press release in July stating that they were, with the co-operation of the band, re-releasing Musique and Assembly. Both albums have been remastered and will be backed with bonus tracks. New liner notes and artwork are said to be a part of the package. Each album is limited to 2000 numbered copies.^[2]

On 1 March 2010, Theatre of Tragedy issued a statement informing fans of their decision to split on 2 October 2010. The statement cited personal desires to spend more time with family and an inability to juggle their everyday working lives with a "rock and roll" lifestyle.^[3] On 12 March, Theatre of Tragedy kicked off their farewell tour, "Forever is the World Tour". The Norwegian symphonic goth metal band Where Angels Fall played support on the European part of the tour. In September, fans helped the band to secure funds to finish their first and last DVD by making donations when the label pulled out most of the funding for the production.^[4]

Musical style[link]

The band made use of contrasting vocals – male bass vocals (making some use of death grunts) and female soprano singing (commonly referred to as "Beauty and the Beast" vocals) – and on their first three albums, presented lyrics written predominantly in Early Modern English. Starting from the album Musique, however, Theatre of Tragedy made drastic changes to its style, which became significantly inspired by the industrial rock genre, abandoning Early Modern English writing and death grunts in the process.

Members[link]

Final lineup[link]

• Nell Sigland – Vocals (2004–2010)
• Raymond István Rohonyi – Vocals, Programming, Electronics (1993–2010)
• Frank Claussen – Guitars (1997–2010)
• Vegard K. Thorsen – Guitars (1999–2010)
• Lorentz Aspen – Keyboards, Synthesizers (1993–2010)
• Hein Frode Hansen – Drums (1993–2010)

Former members[link]

• Pål Bjåstad – Guitars (1993–1995)
• Tommy Lindal – Guitars (1993–1997)
• Eirik T. Saltrø – Bass (1993–2000)
• Liv Kristine Espenæs Krull – Vocals (1993–2003)
• Geir Flikkeid – Guitars (1995–1997)
• Tommy Olsson – Guitars (1997–1999)

Touring members[link]

• Bjørnar Landa – Guitar (2006)
• Erik Torp – Bass (2010)

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Theatre of Tragedy (1995)
• Velvet Darkness They Fear (1996)
• Aégis (1998)
• Musique (2000)
• Assembly (2002)
• Storm (2006)
• Forever Is the World (2009)

Live Albums[link]

• closure:live (2001)
• Last Curtain Call (2011)

DVDs[link]

• Last Curtain Call (2011)

EPs[link]

• Theatre of Tragedy (demo, 1994)
• A Rose for the Dead (1997)
• Virago (1999)
• Inperspective (2000)
• Addenda (2010)

Singles[link]

• "Der Tanz Der Schatten" (1996)
• "Cassandra" (1998)
• "Image" (2000)
• "Machine" (2001)
• "Envision" (2002)
• "Let You Down" (2002)
• "Storm" (2006)
• "Deadland" (2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Theatre of Tragedy on Myspace
• Theatre of Tragedy discography at Discogs