Jo Brauner

In the wake of the turmoil at the end of the Second World War, the family fled to Thuringia in January 1945. Four years later, the German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in the Soviet occupied zone. Brauner spent his childhood and youth in the GDR. His parents instilled in him a strong sense of duty and great ambition. After school, Brauner began studying at the Pedagogical Institute in Leipzig. In 1958 he completed the state examination as a primary school teacher for German. In the same year, Brauner moved to the Federal Republic of Germany. He initially worked in a graphic art institute in Hamburg. He then worked as a commercial clerk at an insurance company. In addition to this professional activity, Brauer began taking speaking lessons on the advice of a friend. In 1965 he left the insurance company to join Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). On May 15, 1965, Brauner spoke his first news broadcast on the NDR2 radio program. At NDR, Brauner became a full-time speaker, appearing on many radio programs. Above all, you could hear him on sports programs. From 1967, Brauner was an on- and off-speaker on the NDR television program "Reports from the Day". He was appointed on- and off-speaker at the "Tagesschau", which he spoke for the first time on October 9, 1974. Brauner quickly became the chief spokesman for the "Tagesschau". The central news program on ARD television has been broadcast since the 1950s and has only had five chief anchors in half a century: Karl-Heinz Köpcke, Werner Veigel, Dagmar Berghoff, Brauner and, since October 2004, Jan Hofer. During his three decades as a "Tagesschau" announcer, Brauner became the most famous television face in Germany. He became famous for his objective, cool and serious, almost notarial style when reading out even the most dramatic news. Under Brauner, the "Tagesschau" has had the highest number of viewers for a TV news program since 1984. This success was due not least to the credibility of the show, to which Brauner contributed greatly with his charisma. On October 9, 2004, exactly 30 years to the day after his first "Tagesschau" broadcast, Brauner said goodbye to ARD with the last news program he spoke. This meant that the longest-serving news anchor at the First went into retirement. Jan Hofer succeeded him. Brauner has been married to Ann since 1969, with whom he has two daughters.