About us

C.H.BECK, established in 1763, is one of the great names among German publishing companies – and one of the richest in tradition. With more than 9,000 available titles including many electronic publications, with about 70 professional journals and an annual production of up to 1,500 new publications and new editions, C.H.BECK publishing company also ranks in the top tier in terms of quantity among German publishers of books and magazines.

C.H.BECK is one of Germany's oldest publishing firms. The present owners are the brothers Dr. Hans Dieter Beck and Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Beck, who represent the sixth generation of direct descendants of the company's founder, Carl Gottlob Beck. In 1763, C.G. Beck acquired a printing firm that had already been operating in Nördlingen for 130 years and added a publishing company and a bookstore. The initials of his son and successor, Carl Heinrich Beck, survive in the company's present name C.H.BECK. The fourth-generation publisher Oscar Beck relocated the company to Munich in 1889, but the printing facility remained in Nördlingen. In the middle of the 19th century, the company began to expand into a diversified scientific publishing firm that at the same time continued to maintain a small literary program. For several decades, C.H.BECK was a leading theological publisher. Later on, theology took on a smaller role in the company’s catalogue as compared to other areas such as history, the study of antiquity, literary science and – last but not least – law, subjects which have shaped the work of Beck Publishing since the early 19th century and which continue to dominate today.

The current activities of the publishing house are divided into two domains: The Law – Taxes – Economics branch under the direction of Dr. Hans Dieter Beck and the Literature – Nonfiction – Science branch under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Beck.

Today C.H.BECK supports all conceivable forms of publications in the field of law, such as large multi-volume works for specialists as well as modestly priced brochures for a wide audience, continuously updated loose-leaf folders as well as textbooks and professional journals, DVDs and Apps and, since the middle of 2001, a comprehensive online database named beck-online. It has always been the company's policy to meet the demand for legal publications in literally all areas of the law, while special emphasis has been put on the practical aspects of the legal professions, especially on commentaries and reference books.

In the Literature – Non-fiction – Science division, C.H.BECK mainly publishes works in history, religion, philosophy, political and social science, literature and linguistics as well as in art and architecture. Our publications cover a diversity of styles and genres. The larger part of our list consists of non-fiction books aimed at the general reader, biographies, illustrated books, popular paperbacks as well as lifestyle publications. Yet monographs of more scholarly interest, multi-volume handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias and textbooks also have their place on our list. In addition, we accommodate publications that touch the genre boundary to fiction and literature, like essays, autobiographical documents and correspondence, and we publish anthologies, collections of poetry and editions of literary classics. C.H.Beck maintains the complete works of Austrian novelist Heimito von Doderer (1896 - 1966), one of the most significant writers in German of the twentieth century.

Franz Vahlen Publishing is one of the leading business publishers in Germany. Founded in Bonn in 1870 Franz Vahlen is nowadays part of the C.H.BECK publishing group in Munich.

Its programme includes mainly textbooks and professional books on business and economics for both students and practitioners, while management literature completes the offer.

In 2010 the legal branch of the book programme was significantly extended with wide variety of textbooks for law students. But commentaries and reference books addressed to judges, attorneys and notaries still constitute a major part of the publishing activity.