The Heyne Verlag (formerly Wilhelm Heyne Verlag) is a German publisher based in Munich, which was founded in Dresden in 1934 and sold to Axel Springer in 2000. In 2004 it became part of Random House. Heyne was one of the largest publishing houses in Germany in 1999. History Wilhelm Heyne Era: 1934-1960 Wilhelm Heyne founded the publisher, named after him, on 15 February 1934 in Dresden. The first authors included Reinhold Conrad Muschler ("Die Unbekannte"), Werner Bergengruen ("Die drei Falken"), Ernst Moritz Mungenast ("Christop Gadar"), and Arthur-Heinz Lehmann ("Rauhbautz will auch leben!"), as well as the US-American writer Gwen Bristow with "Tiefer Süden". In 1940, Franz Schneekluth acquired minority shares in the Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, after he became director of the publishing house in 1935. During the air raids on Dresden the publishing house in Reichsstrasse was completely destroyed. After the war, the activities in Munich were resumed in 1948, with Wilhelm Heyne holding only 40 percent of the shares in the publishing house. Rolf Heyne Era: 1960-2000 In 1951, Rolf Heyne joined the Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, where he took over the management at the beginning of the 1960s. Under his leadership, the publisher's paperback program was created. It was expanded in 1966 by the works of Georges Simenon, which was given to the Wilhelm Heyne Verlag by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. In addition, the paperbacks of the Kindler Verlag were taken over. The 1950s and '60s were also characterized by the introduction of various series in addition to the regular program (General Series). These included Heyne Paperbacks for world literary works as well as Heyne Science Fiction and Heyne Trade books. The latter started with "Profiles in Courage" by John F. Kennedy, for which the author received the Pulitzer Prize. In 1970, the Moewig Verlag, which the Heyne family had bought before the Second World War, was sold to Bauer Media Group. In 1974, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag co-operated with the publishing group Bertelsmann, with the intentions to better cover the market for paperbacks. At the same time, Heyne should be facilitated access to youth, trade and specialist titles. They also worked with Hestia Verlag from Bayreuth. At the end of the 1970s, a number of licenses from the publisher Fritz Molden was also purchased to expand Heyne's program. At that time, the Heyne paperbacks had a total circulation of over 100 million copies. The Karl May series began with