Stefan Aust

After graduating from school with a high school diploma, the son of a farmer studied sociology without a degree. Meanwhile, he attracted attention with his first journalistic works. Aust then became editor of the left-wing newspaper "konkret" in 1966, and from 1970 he was a senior employee of the television station Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). Here he was, among other things, director of the program "Panorama" from 1972 to 1986. Stefan Aust first attracted international attention as a journalist in 1985 with the non-fiction book "The Baader-Meinhof Complex". In May 1988, Aust founded SPIEGEL TV. He also did pioneering work because, in the wake of the privatization of television rights, SPIEGEL TV was the first private political magazine format on German television. The content of the program dealt with a mixture of current economic and political issues. Aust was sometimes seen as the presenter of the show. Meanwhile, the book "Mauss - a German Agent" was published in 1988. In 1989, Aust was awarded the "Adolf Grimme Prize" in silver for his work. "The Pirate" was also released in 1989. When he was appointed editor-in-chief of the news magazine DER SPIEGEL, under editor Rudolf Augstein, on December 16, 1994, he left the editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL TV. In addition to numerous other book publications, such as the treatment of the terrorist attacks of September 11th caused by Osama bin Laden, he rose to become one of the most prominent journalists in the German and European media. He is interested in domestic politics, particularly law enforcement and police bodies, as well as economic issues. At the beginning of 2005 it was announced that the SPIEGEL boss, together with SPIEGEL TV editor-in-chief Cassian von Salomon and dctp managing director Alexander Kluge, wanted to start a new digital TV channel under the title SPIEGEL TV - XXP Digital in March 2005. The channel XXP was then sold to Discovery Channel. On January 31, 2005, Aust took over the moderation of the weekly magazine "Zeitreise", which was broadcast as part of the new "Premiere" documentary channel "Discovery Geschichte". In February 2005, Aust was awarded the "Golden Camera" in the "TV Journalism" category. In October 2005, the program "Fall Deutschland", which was created in cooperation between ZDF and SPIEGEL TV, was awarded the "German Television Prize" as "Best Information Program". On July 6, 2007, he resigned from his position as managing director of SPIEGEL TV GmbH and instead became editor of the program. On November 15, 2007, it became known that the shareholders of Spiegel-Verlag had mutually decided not to extend his contract beyond December 31, 2008. On February 5, 2008, Aust was released. Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Georg Mascolo took his place. From 2009, Aust held a half stake in the agency agenda media GmbH. In the run-up to the 2009 federal election, Aust produced and presented five programs for Sat1 together with Sabine Christiansen. Stefan Aust lives privately with his wife and two children in Hamburg-Blankenese. He runs a riding stable with a Hanoverian stud in Armstorf near Bremervörde. In 2010 he acquired a 26% stake in N24 Media. In 2014, Aust became the new editor of the daily newspaper "Die Welt". In 2016 he received the Ernst Dieter Lueg Prize and in 2018 he was awarded the Lower Saxony State Prize,