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Alice Schwarzer ends feminist magazine Emma after 50 years, final print issue on 8 December
The print edition of the feminist magazine Emma, founded in 1977, will close with the 8 December 2026 issue. Founder Alice Schwarzer says money is not the reason, and the online brand will carry on.
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In brief
The 50th-anniversary issue of 8 December 2026 will be the last printed Emma, which has published 398 issues and more than 36,000 pages since 26 January 1977.
Schwarzer says revenue still covers costs despite falling circulation, while the editorial team points to a lack of younger successors in leadership and a team that is exhausted after nine to 50 years of work.
The website Emmaonline is to continue as a feminist information forum and a newsletter is planned, while the archive moves to the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, where research opens in 2029.
In 2024 Alice Schwarzer acknowledged that her position on Ukraine peace talks with Russia, held since 2022, led one in five readers to cancel their subscriptions in protest.
- 2024Schwarzer acknowledges the Ukraine stance cost subscribers
- 8 DecFinal print issue, the 50th-anniversary edition
- 2029Research on the magazine's history opens at the Marbach archive
A final print issue after nearly 50 years
Alice Schwarzer, the German feminist who founded Emma, has announced that the magazine will stop appearing in print. The issue of 8 December 2026 will be the last, a 50th-anniversary edition, Schwarzer told the German Press Agency (dpa) in Cologne. Emma first appeared on 26 January 1977. According to the editorial team, 398 issues and more than 36,000 pages have been published since then. Schwarzer, now 83, presented the decision as a choice rather than a forced exit.
“No, we are leaving because we think: enough is enough!”
Why the editors say they are stopping
Schwarzer and the editorial team both reject money as the main reason. Schwarzer conceded that circulation is falling but said the magazine's income still meets its outgoings.
“Of course our circulation is falling too. But our revenue still covers our expenses.”
The editorial team points instead to a shortage of younger people for the leadership level and to a long-serving team that is simply exhausted. Each member has worked on Emma for between nine and 50 years, and the first of them wanted to step back two years ago after 30 years. Schwarzer and her colleagues want to leave with their heads held high rather than slipping away quietly. The decision was taken by the team around her, which has produced the magazine for half a century.
Ukraine and transgender remarks drew reader anger
Since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, Schwarzer has repeatedly called for quick peace negotiations with Russia, at times together with Sahra Wagenknecht. Critics accuse her of losing sight of which country is the aggressor and which is the attacked one. In 2024 she acknowledged that this stance had affected the magazine's subscriber numbers. She said that one in five readers had cancelled their subscription in protest, and that she would not be intimidated by this.
Her position on transgender people has also drawn criticism. In 2023, 33 authors and artists demanded the cancellation of an event with her at the Literarischer Herbst in Leipzig, citing what they called transphobic, racist and misogynist statements and publications. Schwarzer reacted with outrage and said she had never attacked transgender people.
What survives online and in the archive
The brand itself is not disappearing. The website Emmaonline is to continue as a feminist information forum. A newsletter is also planned. The complete editorial archive is moving to the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, where research on the magazine's history can begin in 2029.