Thomas Reichart

Thomas Reichart (born June 13, 1971 in Lindenberg / Allgäu ) is a German television journalist and book author .

Career

Thomas Reichart studied modern history, Romance studies and political science in Tübingen , San Diego (USA) and Cologne . He then attended the Berlin School of Journalism . In July 2000 he started as a reporter and editor for ZDF in Berlin - initially at Kennzeichen D , from January 2001 at Frontal21 . Reichart was a member of the ZDF Doping Task Force and reported on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and 2010 in Vancouver . In the same year he moved to the ZDF capital studio as a correspondent , where his main topics were secret services (NSA wiretapping scandal) and internal security (right-wing terrorism). From 2014 to 2019, Reichart headed the ZDF East Asia studio in Beijing, which is responsible for reporting from China , Taiwan , North and South Korea , Japan and the Philippines . Since September 2019, Reichart has been reporting from the ZDF capital city studio with a focus on foreign and security policy.

Awards and grants

Thomas Reichart is the author of award-winning documentaries, most recently the two-part film “The New Silk Road - China's Reach for the West” (together with Norms Odenthal), which won a Silver Award at the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards in 2020. The film was also nominated for the German Television Award 2020 in the categories “Best Documentation / Reportage” and “Best Camera / Documentation”. In 2003 Reichart received the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship for young journalists.

Publications

Reichart is the author of two non-fiction books on East Asia. In 2018 Econ published "The madness and the bomb, How North Korea and the great powers gamble away our security" ( ISBN 978-3-430-20262-6 ), an updated TB edition was published in 2019 by Ullstein with the title "The Kim-Trump Risk "( ISBN 978-3-548-06009-5 ). The book is based on trips to North Korea and on the front lines of the conflict as well as conversations with defectors, politicians, diplomats, the military, former secret service employees, scientists and people whose lives have been shaped by the conflict. The NZZ called it a “startling book”, the Handelsblatt praised the “inside information”.

In August 2020 dtv will publish “The Fire of the Dragon, What drives the Chinese, where they dominate and why they laugh at us”. In it, after five years in Beijing, Reichart describes how the new, powerful China is threatening western, liberal societies and shifting the weights of the world.