Ulrich Wickert

Ulrich Wickert (born December 2, 1942 in Tokyo) is a German journalist. He is one of the best known broadcasters in Germany.

As a result of his father's employment with NATO, Wickert grew up in Heidelberg and Paris. In the 1960s he studied law and political sciences at the University of Bonn. In 1962 he spent a year at Wesleyan University on a Fulbright scholarship.

After passing the first level of German bar exams in 1968, he started working as freelance radio producer for ARD, becoming a full-time editor there a short time later.

Between 1969 and 1977, Wickert was an editor for Monitor, a political affairs program produced by the WDR network. He was deployed as a correspondent for every French presidential election between 1969 and 1978. In 1978 he was made French correspondent and transferred to the Paris bureau of the ARD.

In 1981, he founded the discussion group "Journalists for Public Broadcasting"; in that same year he became chief correspondent of the ARD bureau in New York. In 1984 he became chief correspondent of the Paris ARD bureau.

Since 1 July 1991 he had been the chief anchor for "tagesthemen", in alteration with Sabine Christiansen (1991-1997), Gabi Bauer (1997-2001) and Anne Will (2001-2006). On April 11, 2004, he announced that he would not seek a renewal of his contract, which expired in 2006. On September 1 2006 Wickert was succeeded by Washington D.C. bureau chief Tom Buhrow.

He was elevated to the French Légion d'honneur in 2005 for his service to French-German relations.

Wickert is in his third marriage, to Julia Jäkel, executive publisher of the Brigitte Group at Gruner und Jahr.

External links

* [http://www.sbznet.de/?rubrik=kultur&thema=03-10-21-01 Interview with Ulrich Wickert: "Bunt und locker flockig reicht nicht"] (in German, by [http://www.sbznet.de sbznet.de] )