Founded by Leopld Ullstein in 1897, the Berlin-based company produced popular newspapers and magazines, including Berliner Illustrirte. Since 1959, the company has been owned by Axel Springer, Germany's largest newspaper publishing house and third-largest magazine publisher.

The ullstein bild photo archive was one of the few to survive World War II, during which much of Germany's art and photographic collections were destroyed or lost. Ullstein bild's archive was evacuated in time to preserve the several million images it contained. It offers rare material from the days of the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. The archive also contains equally unique post-war photographs, such as color shots of Berlin Wall construction and President Kennedy's famous West Berlin speech.

An initial 25,000 images have been digitized, captioned in English and made available at the TopFoto Web site. Additional ullstein bild photos are scanned and added daily.

The representation deal rounds out TopFoto's European editorial image collection, which also includes French, Russian and Italian libraries of similar historic value. Director of sales Flora Smith says TopFoto can supply its customers with images of almost every European personality, event and day.

In 2007, TopFoto also expanded its specialty offering. It has reached agreements to represent an internationally diverse group of stock and archival libraries, including UK City Images, AA World Travel Library, John Hedgecoe, Ken Russell, World History Archive, Punch Cartoons and Photo NZ. The agency and its founder, Alan Smith, recently received the 2007 BAPLA award for outstanding contribution to the image-licensing industry.