“Summer in the City” was the motto of Tuesday night’s event hosted by FOCUS Editors-in-Chief Helmut Markwort and Uli Baur. 1,400 guests came to the Berlin waterside location.

The guest list read like a who-is-who of German politics: There was Chancellor Angela Merkel chatting animatedly with publisher Hubert Burda. Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering would not have missed the traditional FOCUS summer party either. He was joined by the Cabinet Ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Foreign Affairs), Franz-Josef Jung (Defense), Peer Steinbrück (Finance), Annette Schavan (Education), Thomas de Maiziere (Chancellery) and Wolfgang Tiefensee (Transport).

The Secretary-Generals of the political parties had come as well: Ronald Pofalla (CDU), Hubertus Heil (SPD), and Dirk Nebel (FDP) received a musical welcome from the band “Tätära”. The Green Party’s leadership duo, Claudia Roth and Reinhard Bütikofer, enjoyed the party as much as Berlin’s Lord Mayor Klaus Wowereit, conservative parliamentary leader Volker Kauder and the President of Parliament Norbert Lammert.

The politicians were joined by the business elite, namely Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann, publisher Friede Springer, Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, Air Berlin boss Joachim Hunold, media manager Hans Mahr and Federal Employment Agency Chairman Frank-Jürgen Weise.

In his welcoming words, Helmut Markwort stated another reason to party: the excellent ranking of news magazine FOCUS in the recent survey “Readership Analysis: Decision-Makers (LAE)” which showed that FOCUS had outperformed its competitor “Der Spiegel”. “We are celebrating the LAE,” Markwort told his guests at the Radialsystem Cultural Center, “it is our favorite chart!”

The night’s highlight was “Spree Aflame”, a show featuring a mix of light and laser performances, fireworks, artistry and music. The guests adhered to the motto “Party, party, party” until the early morning hours.