Ulrich Wickert

Wickert grew up in Heidelberg and Paris as a result of his father Erwin Wickert being employed with NATO as a German diplomat. 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.[2][3]

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.[4]

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.[5]

From July 1991 to August 2006 he was chief anchor for tagesthemen, in alternation with Sabine Christiansen (1991-1997), Gabi Bauer (1997-2001) and Anne Will (2001-2006). On 11 April 2004 he announced that he would not seek a renewal of his contract, which expired in 2006. On 1 September 2006 Wickert was succeeded by Washington D.C. bureau chief Tom Buhrow.[6][7]

He was elevated to the French Légion d'honneur in 2005 for his service to French-German relations.[8]

Wickert is in his third marriage, to Julia Jäkel, CEO of the publishing house Gruner + Jahr. He is the uncle of actress Emily Wood.[9]

• Ulrich Wickert at IMDb
• Interview with Ulrich Wickert: "Bunt und locker flockig reicht nicht" (in German, by sbznet.de)