Newspapers and Magazines

No other magazine in Germany embodies the term "youth culture" in the way that BRAVO does. For decades it has been reporting on German topics and, at the same time, it was the most important purveyor of American pop culture. The exhibition "50 Years of BRAVO" is currently being prepared for the jubilee next year.

On August 26th 1956 the first issue appears in Munich with an initial print run of 30,000 copies at the price of 50 pfennigs. Only three years later its circulation reaches over half a million and continues to rise – passing the million mark, week by week. Not until the crisis in the magazine market (in the 1980s) does the circulation decrease, levelling off nowadays at around 500,000.

"50 Years of BRAVO" – for the jubilee next year the Wilhelm-Fabry-Museum in Hilden near Düsseldorf is currently preparing an exhibition within the framework of its Youth Culture Year. It is to be supplemented by a catalogue of over 300 pages, compiled by the Berlin Archive of Youth Cultures. Michael Krambrock (Hilden) and Klaus Farin (Berlin) aim to present "a unique portrait of 50 years of youth culture". According to Klaus Farin, BRAVO absorbed all the trends, researched and tested its young target group as no other magazine did, but never actually presented a programme of its own. Michael Krambrock: "We want to show young people today how their parents and grandparents grew up."

Touring exhibition in the jubilee year

The organisers have set four focal points. BRAVO as the "reflection of the zeitgeist" discovered the teenager in the years of the economic miracle (the 1950s) and brought rock ‘n roll to Germany. The beat generation and the hippies dominated the sixties, whereas the students' revolt of 1968 received comparatively marginal coverage. Only two issues – as Michael Krambrock discovered – had explicitly political front pages: the actor Heinz Rühmann with a Hitler moustache in 1957 stood for a critical debate about the Nazi past. "We mourn with America" was the magazine's front-page headline after September 11, 2001.

The second theme is entitled "Commerce and Youth Culture". In the early days BRAVO also had the subheading "Film and TV Magazine" and devoted a significant amount of column space to the stars of the silver screen. Not until 1964 was its transformation into a music magazine completed. Charts and ranking lists reflected the commercial success of the stars and starlets in the music business. BRAVO organised market studies and analysed its target group, it employed pollsters to conduct surveys and created its own music prize with the "Otto" competition. Its youth surveys merit serious attention nowadays, even by established sociologists.

Alongside the star cult, the topic of "sexuality" became a fundamental factor at the end of the 1960s. "Dr. Sommer" wrote his first column in magazine # 43/1969. The doctor and psychologist – whose real name is Dr. Goldstein – is still alive. Exhibition organiser Michael Krambrock has visited him, and at the launch of the exhibition in Hilden he will talk about his experiences. If at all, then it was in this sphere that BRAVO did pioneering work, says Krambrock. "Nowadays one can hardly imagine how great the demand was to catch up knowledge of this kind." In 1972 BRAVO was censored twice for sexual portrayals which were deemed too permissive. Krambock: "Nowadays this would be simply laughable." "Dr. Sommer" stayed the course for 15 years, now a team of authors writes under his name.

Readers' own BRAVO stories

The fourth theme aims to incorporate the public at the exhibition sites. Regional and local newspapers will be asking their readers to tell their own BRAVO stories. Artefacts are also in demand. "There are the most amazing mementoes," says Krambrock. "We came across an original Beatles' guitar, the first BRAVO Ottos, rare autograph cards, any number of life-size centrefolds of stars, an old battery-operated record-player, a Zündapp (an original moped from the ‘50s), leather jackets, concert tickets..."

The BRAVO editorial staff itself has simply announced with regard to the exhibition project that for it the jubilee is not until next year. Klaus Farin: "We have written to them, invited them to work with us – but there was no reaction." The organisers of the exhibition emphasise that their show by no means intends to pillory BRAVO. "We are looking into 50 years of youth culture, and it is certainly a critical look," says Krambrock. He is working together with many volunteers, who scan in the pictures or download the music. Among them is Wolfgang Antweiler, the director of the Hilden archive, and he is also supported by the city historian Bernd Morgner and several private collectors. "We could really do with some more sponsors," he says. After all, the Heinrich-Bauer-Verlag, where BRAVO is published, is the fourth largest German media publishing house.

Meanwhile BRAVO has created spin-offs: BRAVO-Girl, BRAVO-Sport, BRAVO-Screenfun (for computer games) and, of course, its own online platform (BRAVO.de), where everything that could be of interest to young people is on offer, from star quiz to ring tones for mobile phones. "BRAVO and youth culture – at one time you could say that in one breath," says Michael Krambrock. "This is no longer possible nowadays."

The exhibition, which was opened in Hilden on October 2005, is to be shown this year in numerous German cities as well as in Vienna and Copenhagen. A special version for schools is in the pipeline. The exhibition catalogue will be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair.