The history of Georg von Holtzbrink's publishing activities during the Nazi years 1933-1945 has been controversial. After World War II,
Georg von Holtzbrinck, a former member of the Nazi party, reestablished a group in 1948, beginning as a German
book club. In the 1960s, it purchased the German publishing companies
Droemer, Kindler,
Rowohlt and
S. Fischer Verlag. In 1985, it acquired the retail book division of
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, naming it the
Henry Holt Book Company. One year later, the company acquired
Scientific American magazine for $52.6 million. In 1994, it purchased a
majority interest in
Farrar, Straus & Giroux from retiring
Roger W. Straus, Jr. A year later, it purchased a 70% majority interest in
Macmillan Publishers, and then the remaining shares in 1999. In 2001,
Pearson sold the Macmillan trademark in the United States (gained with the acquisition of
Simon & Schuster educational and professional division, which included the assets of former
Macmillan Inc.) to Holtzbrinck. In March 2006, Holtzbrinck forced
Tor Books, which is owned by Holtzbrinck, to stop making its books available as
e-books via
Baen Ebooks because of concerns regarding the lack of
digital rights management (DRM). The policy was later changed and Tor titles became available as DRM-free e-books in 2012. The Tor UK label in Britain (and hence the EU) does the same. The company also received a good deal of attention when it bought the then leading German social networking platform
StudiVZ in January 2007. Holtzbrinck has total annual sales of 1.99 billion euros (as of 2024); 29% of sales are in Germany and 53% in North America. It had 2024 earnings before taxes of 293 million euros, and a total of 14,000 employees. The current chairman of the group is Stefan von Holtzbrinck. Jon Yaged is CEO of Macmillan, which represents the group's trade publishing activities, primarily in the US. ==Subsidiaries and imprints==