in the 1950s and 1960s, bunte developed into one of the most widely distributed german popular magazines. acquisitions also played a role in the expansion of the magazine: in 1958, the "deutsche illustrierte" was taken over. in 1960, the "münchner illustrierte", with a circulation of some 500,000 copies, was added to the portfolio, so that the "bunte münchner illustrierte" first surpassed the one million mark at the beginning of 1961. in addition, the publishing company bought the traditional "frankfurter illustrierte" in 1963, which was also merged into the "bunte". from then on, the publication was called "bunte münchner frankfurter illustrierte". beyond focus on high society, in the 1960s the bunte more and more frequently featured topics such as post-war rebuilding, cinema films and music. the magazine attracted major attention, for example, with a photo series about the iron curtain.