ner to publish in Russian in the Soviet Union. "You have achieved more than three ambassadors before you," West German foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, told her. The deal was seen as a milestone in Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalising campaigns in the second half of the 1980s.

Burda married printer Franz Burda in 1931 and together they transformed a small family printing business into a publishing powerhouse. Among its well-known titles are Focus news weekly and Bunte, a leading German gossip magazine. In 1949 she founded fashion publishing firm Burda-Moden, which grew into a global empire with titles in over 100 countries and eighteen languages. Burda managed the Burda-Moden publishing concern for 45 years until 1994 when it was integrated into her son's company, Hubert Burda Media. In 2001 she was awarded Germany's Distinguished Service Cross.

Reuters