Spiegel scandal

The Spiegel Affair of 1962 was one of the major political scandals in West Germany after World War II. It stemmed from the publication of an article in Der Spiegel, Germany's leading weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense forces. The scandal involved a conflict between Franz Josef Strauss, federal minister of defense, and Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel . The affair cost Strauss his office and, according to some commentators, put the postwar German democracy to its first major test.