Maybrit Illner (née Klose; born 12 January 1965) is a German journalist and television presenter.

Education

Born in East Berlin, Illner went to school in the

Friedrichshain Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzl ...

area of Berlin and studied journalism at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

from 1984 to 1988. She joined the

SED sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs, and is available today for most operating systems. sed w ...

in 1986 and left it in 1991.

Career

After university, Illner worked as a television journalist at

Deutscher Fernsehfunk Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF; German for "German Television Broadcasting") was the state television broadcaster in the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) from 1952 to 1991. DFF produced free-to-air terrestrial television programmin ...

, East German state television, until it was dissolved in 1991. She joined German broadcaster ZDF and co-presented ''Morgenmagazin'', a weekday morning show from 1992. She became the head of the Morgenmagazin in 1998. From October 1999, Illner presented an evening talk show originally titled ''Berlin Mitte'' but changed in March 2007 to ''Maybrit Illner''. Besides, she moderated the TV election debates between Chancellor

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

and his challengers

Edmund Stoiber Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber (born 28 September 1941) is a German politician who served as the 16th Minister President of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) between 1999 and 2007. In 2002, he r ...

( 2002) and

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...

( 2005). In 2006, she interviewed

President of Russia The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federal ...

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

. She also interviewed Merkel shortly before the 2009 elections. As successor to Steffen Seibert, Illner anchored ZDF's news show ''

heute-journal ''heute-journal'' (roughly ''Today's Journal'') is a television news magazine broadcast on ZDF, a national German television network. History The programme premiered on 2 January 1978 as a late weekday evening 20 minute program. Originally, ...

'' from September 2010 until December 2012, in rotation with Claus Kleber and Marietta Slomka. Since 2013, Illner has been focusing on her own political talkshow ''Maybrit Illner''. Alongside Anne Will,

Peter Kloeppel Peter Gert Johannes Kloeppel (born 14 October 1958) is a German journalist and former chief editor of RTL Television. He is chief anchor of RTL's flagship daily television news program '' RTL aktuell''. Early life and education Kloeppel was b ...

and Stefan Raab, she also moderated the only TV election debate between incumbent Merkel and her competitor

Peer Steinbrück Peer Steinbrück (born 10 January 1947) is a German politician who was the Chancellor-candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 2013 federal election. Steinbrück served as the eighth Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia f ...

ahead of the 2013 elections, which was aired live on four of Germany's most-watched television channels during prime-time. Ahead of the

2017 elections The following elections occurred in 2017. Africa *2017 Somali presidential election 8 February 2017 *2017 Gambian parliamentary election 6 April 2017 * 2017 Algerian legislative election 4 May 2017 *2017 Lesotho general election 3 June 2017 *20 ...

, she moderated the debate between Merkel and

Martin Schulz Martin Schulz (born 20 December 1955) is a German politician who served as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2017 to 2018, and was a Member of the Bundestag (MdB) from 2017 to 2021. Previously he was President of the European Parliam ...

, this time with Kloeppel, Sandra Maischberger and Claus Strunz. Alongside Oliver Köhr, she most recently moderated one of three TV election debates between the three candidates to succeed Merkel –

Annalena Baerbock Annalena Charlotte Alma Baerbock (; born 15 December 1980) is a German politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party serving as Germany's minister for foreign affairs since 2021. From 2018 to January 2022, Baerbock served as co-leader of Allia ...

Armin Laschet Armin Laschet (; born 18 February 1961) is a German politician who served as Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 27 June 2017 to 26 October 2021. He served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 22 January 2021 to 3 ...

and Olaf Scholz – ahead of the 2021 elections. In March 2022, she conducted the first major televised interview with Scholz as newly elected Chancellor.

Personal life

Deutscher Fernsehpreis 2012 - Maybrit Illner - Rene Obermann

She was married to fellow television journalist Michael Illner (born 1962) from 1988 to 2007. She married René Obermann, at that time CEO of Deutsche Telekom, on 14 August 2010 at Schloss Ulrichshusen. They live in Berlin and

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

. For the

German Red Cross The German Red Cross (german: Deutsches Rotes Kreuz ; DRK) is the national Red Cross Society in Germany. With 4 million members, it is the third largest Red Cross society in the world. The German Red Cross offers a wide range of services withi ...

(DRK), Illner has travelled to

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

in 2003 and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

in 2004. In 2018, she chaired the jury for the annual Ludwig-Börne-Preis, which awarded the prize to journalist

Souad Mekhennet Souad Mekhennet (born 1978 in Frankfurt am Main) is a German journalist and author who has written or worked for ''The New York Times'', ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', ''The Washington Post'', The Daily Beast and German television channel Z ...

.Ludwig-Börne-Preis
Ludwig-Börne-Stiftung.

Awards

* 2000:

Hanns-Joachim-Friedrichs-Award The Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Award is a German award for excellence in journalism. It was first awarded in 1995. The award is named for the German journalist Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Hanns Joachim "Hajo" Friedrichs (15 March 1927 – 28 March 1 ...

for critical and independent television journalism * 2001: Hans-Klein-Media Award for their moderation of the ZDF talk show '' Berlin Mitte '' * 2002 and 2007:

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten ...

* 2003:

Bayerischer Fernsehpreis Bayerischer Fernsehpreis (the Bavarian TV award) is an award presented by the government of Bavaria, Germany since 1989. The prize symbol is the "Blue Panther", a figure from the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory. The prize money is €10,000 (Spe ...

* 2004: German Television Award for Best Information Programme * 2006: Hildegard von Bingen Prize for Journalism (according to the prize jury Illner understood transforming "the Anglo-Saxon form of information, Talk in a separate and unique media event") * 2009: Goldene Kamera in the category ''Best Information''

Publications

* ''Frauen an der Macht. 21 einflussreiche Frauen berichten aus der Wirklichkeit''. Hugendubel, Kreuzlingen, München 2005, . * ''Politiker-Deutsch/Deutsch-Politiker''. Langenscheidt, München, Berlin 2007, . * (with Ingke Brodersen) ''Ente auf Sendung. Von Medien und ihren Machern''. Deutsche Verlags Anstalt, München 2003, .

References

External links

*
ZDF: ''Maybrit Illner''Maybrit Illner Zeit interview''Talkshow-king Oskar Lafontaine''
by Lukas Hermsmeier on Cicero Online, 23. January 2009
''»Politics demands dedication«''
Interview by Christoph Amend, Die Zeit, 5. July 2006 * *FemBio, http://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/maybrit-illner/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Illner, Maybrit German women television presenters German television presenters German television talk show hosts German broadcast news analysts German television journalists 21st-century German journalists 1965 births Living people German women television journalists Leipzig University alumni ZDF people People from Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 21st-century German women