Otto Fuerbringer

Otto Fuerbringer (September 27, 1910 – July 28, 2008) was an editor for the American news magazine Time.

Early life and education Fuerbringer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. to Ludwig and Anna Zucker Fuerbringer. His father was a Lutheran minister. He was the youngest of five children. His brother was Alfred Fuerbringer, a Lutheran seminary president. He later attended Harvard University, where he was president of The Harvard Crimson.

Career After graduating from Harvard in 1932, he started working for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, before being hired by Time in 1942. Reaching the rank of assistant managing editor in 1951, he was appointed managing editor in 1960. Later, as head of Time Inc.'s magazine-development group, he also introduced People and Money magazines. Though a social conservative, Fuerbringer nevertheless did much to focus the magazine's attention on the counter-culture and the political and intellectual radicalism of the 1960s.

During Fuerbringer's tenure as editor, the magazine's circulation rose from three to five million. In the accompanying article he explored the role of religion in an increasingly secular society, and investigated a trend among contemporary theologians to write God out of the field of theology. Time employees sometimes called him "Otto Fingerbanger" or "The Iron Chancellor" for his imperious demeanor.