Germany's BurdaForward publishers announced Friday that its Huffington Post Deutschland online news site will close on March 31. Burda, which was licensed to run the site, launched the online paper in October 2013.

Huffington Post Deutschland Managing Director Tanja zu Waldeck said: "The German HuffPost showed that one can launch a new news service and guide it into the top 10 in short order. We are very proud of our development over the past five years. We thank our entire team for their hard work and their passion."

Munich-based Burda said that it is currently trying to find placement opportunities within the company for its 13 Huffington Post employees.

The liberal-leaning Huffington Post was founded in 2005 by a group of individuals including Andrew Breitbart, who later went on to found the right-wing site Breitbart News and Arianna Huffington, for whom it is named.

The site was originally launched on May 9, 2005 and intended as an alternative to online news aggregators like the popular online tabloid Drudge Report. 

The Huffington Post was acquired by online service provider AOL for $315 million (€275) in 2011. AOL was subsequently purchased by Verizon Communications in 2015.

Huffington Post currently operates in 16 countries where it maintains licensing agreements with local publishing houses.

js/sms (dpa, epd)