Ullrich Fichtner

Ullrich Fichtner, 2013 in Frankfurt am Main

Ullrich Fichtner (born May 8, 1965 in Hof ) is a German journalist and author .

Life

After graduating from high school, Ullrich Fichtner initially did an internship at the Frankenpost in Hof and then studied German , history and political science in Bremen and Berlin . Parallel to his studies, he worked for the Weser-Kurier , the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Associated Press news agency .

His first permanent position it led to the turning point in the Berlin office of the Associated Press . In 1994 he became news editor at the Frankfurter Rundschau , from 1996 one of the correspondents in Berlin. From 2000 to 2001 he wrote for the Zeit dossier and since 2001 he has been a reporter for Spiegel . With his book “Tellergericht. The Germans and the Food ”Fichtner became known to a wide audience. In 2011 and 2012 he was a correspondent in New York and from February 2014 to March 2016 he headed the corporate department together with Matthias Geyer . From April 2016, as in the years 2002 to 2010, he was a reporter for the corporate division based in Paris.

From January 1, 2019, he was to form the editor-in-chief together with Steffen Klusmann and Barbara Hans . However, his appointment was suspended until the investigation into the forgery scandal surrounding Claas Relotius was concluded . As head of the corporate department, he brought Relotius to Spiegel in 2014 and supervised his work until 2016. On March 20, 2019, Spiegel-Verlag announced that Fichtner was renouncing the position of editor-in-chief, even if, according to the results of the investigation, he was not personally responsible for the fraud cases. As a reporter with special tasks, he remains tied to the editor-in-chief. In the final report of the investigation, he was accused of not following up on information and delaying the investigation.

honors and awards

In 2000, Fichtner was awarded the journalist prize of the German newspapers, the Theodor Wolff Prize , in the general category and in the same year as the third winner of the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for his contribution The lost honor of Friedrich B. , published in the Frankfurter Rundschau, excellent. The article deals with the psyche of a police officer who is suspended and, despite his rehabilitation, is at the end of his career.
In 2001 he was again the third winner of the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for his contribution The Penal Colony of Moabit in the Zeit dossier.
In 2004 Ullrich Fichtner was awarded the 27th Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for the best German-language report. The report, The Final Battle, documents the Iraq war , especially the battle for Saddam Hussein's native city of Tikrit .
In 2005, Fichtner and the Spiegel team Uwe Buse , Mario Kaiser , Uwe Klussmann , Walter Mayr and Christian Neef received the Henri Nannen Prize for their documentary report on the terrorist attack by Chechen terrorists on a school in Beslan.
In May 2009, Fichtner and a Spiegel team were once again awarded the Henri Nannen Prize, this time for the 35-page cover story The Bank Robbery in November 2008, in which the origins and course of the global financial and economic crisis were highlighted. The article was also awarded the German Reporter Prize, which was awarded for the first time in 2009.
The end of 2009, Fichtner was together with Beat Balzli , Klaus Brinkbäumer , Hauke Goos , Thomas Hüetlin and Christoph Pauly for its report on the American International Group in the mirror as "business editor of the Year 2009" by the media magazine honored.
In 2011 Fichtner and ten other Spiegel editors received the Henri Nannen Prize in the category “Particularly understandable reporting (best documentation)” for the play A German crime about the air attack near Kunduz .
In 2012 he received the Henri Nannen Prize in the Best Documentation category in a team with Ferry Batzoglou , Manfred Ertel , Hauke Goos , Ralf Hoppe , Thomas Hüetlin , Guido Mingels , Christian Reiermann , Cordt Schnibben , Christoph Schult , Thomas Schulz and Alexander Smoltczyk for A bombshell idea appeared in the mirror .
In 2017, the 20-page article published by Fichtner and colleagues in Spiegel under the title Made in Germany about the construction history of Berlin Airport BER was awarded the German Reporter Prize in the Capital City Prize category.

Works

Dish. The Germans and the food . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-421-05586-6 .
Trillion poker. How banks and states flood the world with money - and make us poor . (Ed.), Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-421-04576-8 .