Bertelsman AG was founded in July 1835 by Carl Bertelsmann as a print shop. Initially the company concentrated on Christian books and songs. In 1849 Carl Bertelsmann"s son Heinrich took over the publishing business, which employed 14, and extended the inventory of the publishing house to novels. At the time of his death in 1887, the staff had grown to 60.

             Next to head the company was Johannes Mohn, son-in-law of Heinrich. The company"s growth slowed during this period and the focus was redirected to theological subjects. In 1910 he introduced paid vacation to the company. By 1921, when he turned control of the company over to his son Heinrich, the company had grown to 85 people.

             Under the leadership of Heinrich Bertelsmann, the company experienced rapid growth and by 1939, the publishing house had grown to employ 400 people. New marketing channels were added as the readership became more mainstream in the late 1920"s. On the verge of World War II, the company moved from classical literature and fiction to include books with militaristic themes and eventually published books with nationalistic, racial and anti-Semitic content. The publisher insured its survival for most of the war by linking itself with the Nationalist Socialist ideology. Trouble started in 1944 when it was shut down by the German government as non-essential to the war effort and then crippled in March 1945 during an allied air raid on Gutersloh, in which only some of the printing machines survived. .

             After the war, the publisher was rebuilt by the fifth generation to lead Bertelsmann, Reinhart Hohn, whose influence continues to the present. He took the company from a medium-size printing company to a media conglomerate. In 1950 he established the Reader"s Circle, which bypassed the traditional marketing channels and allowed books to go directly to the reader. Within a year, it had 100,000 members and by 1954 membership had reached 1,000,000.