Springer Timeline

Berlin, Germany

Profile

Imprints

1842-1906 [Back to Top]

1842	Julius Springer opens a bookshop in Berlin on his 25th birthday. He publishes political and philosophical works and soon was in trouble with the censors.
1843	To get around the censors, Springer begins to publish literary and children's works. He publishes Jeremias Gottfelf, founder of the German novel, and translations of such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ivanhoe.
1860	Springer publishes Theodor Fontane's account of his travels in Scotland, Jenseits des Tweed (Beyond the Tweed).
1877	Julius Springer dies and his son Ferdinand takes over the company. His passion for chess is reflected in the firm's logo, which includes a knight chess piece.
1880	Ferdinand's younger brother Fritz, an engineer, joins the firm and begins to develop the engineering publishing emphasis of the firm.
1906	Ferdinand jnr. and Julius jnr. take over the firm and add biology, physics, chemistry and medicine to the firm's publishing mix.

1918-1950 [Back to Top]

1918	Ferdinand Springer founds the math journal Matematische Zeitschrift.
1920	The firms acquires Mathematische Annalen. The math jounals were edited by leading mathematicians of the time, such as Felix Klein, Albert Einstein, David Hilbert, and Otto Blumenthal.
1924	Springer Vienna founded.
1935	Ferdinand and Julius Springer were forced to leave the firm because of their Jewish descent. Tonjes Lange took over the company in trust and later became head of Springer. After the Second World War, he turned the company back over to the Springers, but remained a co-owner for the rest of his life.
1946	Julia and Ferdinand Springer rebuild the offices, almost destroyed during the war, in Heidelberg.
Post-WW II	The first book published by the restored company is Karl Jasper's Die Idee der Universtat (The Idea of the University). It is banned in Berlin.

1957-1997 [Back to Top]

1957-1978	New managers take over, Dr. Heinz Gotze in 1957, Dr. Konrad F. Springer in 1963, and Claus Michaletz in 1978.
1964	Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., founded in 1964, signaling a greater focus on publishing in English and on international contacts with scientists and academics.
1980	Springer acquires Dr. Dietrick Steinkopff Verlag.
1983	Springer Acquires Physica Verlag.
1982	Springer builds new offices in Heidelberg.
1990-1992	Springer builds offices in Berlin, adjacent to the site of the original company.
1994	Springer acquires Urban & Vogel (Munich).
1997	Springer-VDI-Verlag founded in Dusseldorf.

1999-2005 [Back to Top]

1999	Bertelsmann AG purchases a majority share of the scientific Springer-Verlag for its corporate division Bertelsmann Fachinformation. Since then the publishing business was run under the name BertelsmannSpringer.
January 2003	Candover and Cinven purchase Kluwer Academic Publishers from Kluwer for € 600 million .
2003	Candover and Cinven acquire BertelsmannSpringer for € 1.1 billion. Joined with Kluwer, the firm will become known as Springer Science + Business.
2004	The senior management of the Springer Group will be Dr. Dietrick Gotze, Dr. Hans-Dieter Haenel, Rudiger Gebauer and Dr. Ulrich Vest.
2004	Derk Haank will become CEO of Springer Science + Business.
2004	The companies will publish 1,500 journals and more than 5,000 books with revenues of € 880 million.
Oct. 2004	Springer adds 650 journals from Kluwer to the SpringerLink platform. The host is MetaPress.
2004	Springer purchases Euro from Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. It plans to merge the publication with Finanzen.
2005	Springer Science + Business acquires medical publisher Brouwer Media and its 17 medical journals.
2005	Springer Science + Business agrees with the National Library of the Netherlands to carry out long term archiving of Springer online publications.
2007	Cinven and Candover are reported to be putting Springer Science + Business up for sale, with a valuation expected to top € 2 billion. Cinven and Candover reportedly paid € 1.1 billion for Springer and € .6 billion for Kluwer in 2003.