Claus Kleber

Claus Kleber attending Barack Obama's speech at the Victory Column in Berlin (July 2008)

Claus Kleber (born September 2, 1955 in Reutlingen, Germany) is a German journalist. He is the anchorman of the news show heute journal of ZDF, a German public TV station. Specifically, he is known for his expertise in United States politics and German-American relations, as evidenced by his 2005 book Amerikas Kreuzzüge (America's crusades).

Career

Kleber started building his reputation during the 1980s as a Washington correspondent for the German public radio station Deutschlandfunk (DLF).

In the spring of 1989, Kleber returned to Germany as chief editor of RIAS Berlin, the city’s most influential radio station. There, he was on location for the fall of the Berlin Wall, and brought eyewitness accounts of the crumbling Soviet Empire to Germany.

In 1990, Kleber returned to Washington as a senior correspondent and bureau chief for the ARD, one of the two nationwide German public television networks (the other being the ZDF, where he currently works). There, he dedicated twelve years to setting high standards in international reporting and consequently gained a reputation as one of his country’s most influential foreign policy journalists. He has reported from all fifty states in the US, and he has covered, met and interviewed every American president since Ronald Reagan as well as the most influential members of the George W. Bush administration, including President Bush himself as well as secretaries Condoleezza Rice,^[1] Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell.

In 2001, Kleber moved to London as the ARD’s bureau chief. Only a few months into the new job, he received an offer from ZDF (the competing network) to take over as managing editor and principal anchor of Heute Journal, Germany’s leading television news program - an offer nobody can refuse.

Kleber is also a documentary-maker, and together with his long-standing professional partner, Angela Andersen, he has made many works, including the award-winning America, Almighty (2003), Peoples of the Orient (2003), Minefield Afghanistan (2004), India – Unstoppable (2006),^[2] and The Bomb (2009).^[3]

Awards and books

Claus Kleber is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Media prize of the Johanna Quandt Foundation (1998) for excellence in economic reporting, the TV prize of the RIAS Berlin committee (1997, 1999 and 2003), and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (the German equivalent of the American Emmy) in 2005 and 2006. His best-selling book Amerikas Kreuzzüge (America's crusades) earned the 2005 Corine Literature Prize for best non-fictional work. Shortly before the 2008 presidential election, Kleber published an updated edition with his views on the candidates.

Education & Family

Kleber holds a doctorate in Law and Political Science from Tübingen University. He is an alumnus of Studienstiftung. Kleber is married to Renate Kleber, a physician. They have two daughters, 20 and 18 years old,^[when?] and the family lives in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Bibliography

• Kleber, Claus (2008) [2005] (in German). Amerikas Kreuzzüge. Wohin treibt die Weltmacht? (eight and updated edition ed.). München: C. Bertelsmann. ISBN 9783570550014. 

External links

• Portrait at zdf.de (German)

References

1. ^ Interview: Claus Kleber and Condoleezza Rice, via Internet Archive
2. ^ DVD details from amazon.de
3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1476537/

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Name	Kleber
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Date of birth	September 2, 1955
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