The Nannen Prize will be awarded once this year under a different name.

The background is the debate about the role of the former “Stern” editor-in-chief Henri Nannen (1913-1996) during the Nazi era.

The Hamburg publishing house Gruner + Jahr announced on Friday that they had decided together with the magazine belonging to the house to award the Nannen Prize next week (June 22) as a "Star Prize" - to "the debate about Henri Nannen's past to defuse".

The award should let shine those for whom one of the most prestigious journalism prizes in the country is there: outstanding journalists.

Gruner + Jahr also announced that a committee would be set up to advise on the future use of the name for the prize and also for the Henri Nannen School.

A decision will be made by the end of the year.

In May, the magazine "STRG_F" of the North German Broadcasting Corporation reported on certain details about Nannen's otherwise well-known past during the Second World War.

During his lifetime, Nannen had made several public statements about his role as a member of an SS propaganda unit, albeit with reservations.

Articles about him had also appeared in "Stern". The debate about him flared up again and again.

For decades, Nannen was the defining figure of the magazine "Stern", founded in 1948, as its initiator and editor-in-chief.

The "STRG_F" post published on YouTube is about anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets that come from the SS unit "Südstern" and are said to have been distributed at the front in Italy during World War II.

The NDR contribution assigns Nannen an important role in the design of the leaflets.

The article shows anti-Semitic, racist and also sexist historical excerpts from leaflets that have been archived.

The new chairman of the Stern editorial team, Gregor Peter Schmitz, then wrote in an article about the leaflets entitled "Henri Nannen und wir" that these pictures were disgusting and disgusting, and above all that they served many anti-Semitic clichés.

Schmitz also wrote: As a magazine that has shaped Henri Nannen, they want to face the debate "whether we have to take a more critical look at the (complicated) person Nannen".

Schmitz also expressed himself on Friday in the statement from the publishing house, which merged with RTL at the beginning of the year: After the award ceremony next Wednesday, the time will be taken "for calm and conscientious advice on how to deal with our founder properly".

“In the coming year we will also be dealing more intensively with the early years of 'Stern'.

This is not a dismantling and certainly not a campaign - it is one of the basic virtues of journalism: getting to the bottom of things and making balanced judgements.”