The company said the contracts of Ullrich Fichtner, an editor in chief, and Matthias Geyer, a chief editor, had been suspended.

The suspension "will remain until the (magazine's) internal commission has completed its investigation into the affair," the editor in chief Steffen Klusmann said in an internal letter.

Earlier this month, Der Spiegel stunned the media world by revealing that one of its award-winning reporters had falsified stories for years.

Claas Relotius, 33, resigned this month after admitting he had made up stories and invented protagonists in more than a dozen articles in the magazine's print and online editions.