Ullrich Fichtner
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Ullrich Fichtner (born May 8, 1965, in Hof,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
) is a senior German journalist and reporter-at-large of ''
Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' magazine.


Work

Ullrich Fichtner started his career during high school, contributing articles to local newspapers. During his university studies in
Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
and
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
he worked as a freelance journalist for
The Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major ...
, covering the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the breakdown of the communist-led East German State. As a Berlin correspondent of the national daily ''
Frankfurter Rundschau The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' (''FR'') is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The ''Rundschaus editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-wa ...
'', he followed Germany's reunification process and portrayed Berlin as an emerging capital city of Europe. In 2000, he joined the national weekly ''
Die Zeit (, ) is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The first edition of was ...
'' as a junior editor. In 2001, he was hired as a reporter-at-large by ''Der Spiegel'', one of Europe's largest and most influential news magazines. He contributed largely to ''Spiegel''s in-depth investigation of the 9/11 terror attacks, focussing on
Mohamed Atta Mohamed Atta (1 September 196811 September 2001) was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker for al-Qaeda. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism, pan-Islamist, he was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and served as the Aircraft hijacking, hijacker-pi ...
's leading role in the plot. As a world affairs reporter, he intensely covered the Iraq and the Afghanistan Wars, portraying the commanding US general David H. Petraeus on several occasions. His features were widely discussed not only in Europe, but also in the US. Other main stories dealt with the Middle Eastern peace process and the impact of China's rise. Based in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, from 2002 to 2010, he was ''Spiegel''s New York correspondent from 2011 to 2013. From 2014 to 2016, he was in charge of ''Spiegel''s reportage department and then returned to the field as a reporter-at-large. Since 2019, he has again been based in Paris. He is an author and co-author of several books. His essay "Tellergericht", a critical survey of Germany's food culture, helped foster a nationwide debate over culinary habits.


Awards

For his work, Fichtner has received all of the major German prizes for excellence in journalism. In 2000, 2001 and 2004, he won the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for the "Best Reportage of the Year". In 2005, he and a team of colleagues were awarded a Henri Nannen Prize for their investigation into the terrorist attack on a school in
Beslan Beslan (; , ''Beslæn'', ) is a town and the administrative center of Pravoberezhny District of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, Russia, located about north of the republic's capital Vladikavkaz, close to the border with the Republic ...
, Russia. In May 2009, he and a team of colleagues received another Nannen-Preis for a 35-pages report about the roots and reasons of the financial crisis. His third Nannen-Preis, in 2011, was for an in-depth story about a German-led military strike against civilians near the Afghan city of Kunduz. In 2012, he and a team of ''Spiegel'' writers won another Nannen-Preis for a report-at-large about the Euro currency turning into "the most dangerous currency of the world". In 2017, Fichtner ''et. al.'' won a Deutscher Reporterpreis for a story about the German saga of building a new international airport in Berlin-Schönefeld.


Books

* ''Inside 9-11: What Really Happened'', St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2002, * ''Tellergericht. Die Deutschen und das Essen'', Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, München 2004,


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fichtner, Ullrich 1965 births Living people German journalists German male journalists German male writers Der Spiegel people