Christoph Lanz (born 1959) is a journalist, media specialist and strategic adviser in media development for both national and international clients.

Life

Lanz was born in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

. He serves as Trustee for the Thomson Foundation, UK and is Head of the Board of Thomson Media Germany, gGmbH.
He has started in journalism in the early 80s as a reporter and editor for Suedwestfunk (SWF) a member of

ARD (broadcaster) ARD is a joint organisation of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 in West Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralised, post-war broadcasting services – in particular the introduction ...

, Germany's nationwide public service broadcasting cooperation. Christoph Lanz has also worked for various television and radio stations including SWF and NDR and was freelancing correspondent in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...

for various ARD stations and RTL,

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

.
1985 to 1989 he worked for RIAS,

Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor RIAS (german: Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor; en, ''Radio in the American Sector'') was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War I ...

radio-station in various positions. In 1987 Lanz was co-organizer of the RIAS, Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor, radio broadcast and emcee of the "Concert for Berlin" at the Reichstag. In the course of this three-day concert there were conflicts between East German youths and the

Volkspolizei The ''Deutsche Volkspolizei'' (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the ''Volkspolizei'' or VoPo, was the national police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a h ...

(GDR People's Police) at the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

around the

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate (german: Brandenburger Tor ) is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest. One ...

with hundreds of arrests. For the first time there were also calls to be heard like "Gorbi, Gorbi" and "The Wall must go!”
In the early 90s, Christoph Lanz moved to

RIAS Berlin RIAS (german: Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor; en, ''Radio in the American Sector'') was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War ...

television branch, where, two years later he became Editor-in-Chief. After the political upheaval with the fall of the Wall in Germany and the ensuing disbandment of RIAS TV,

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

(Germanys International Broadcasting Service) took over the entity. As Editor-in-Chief Christoph Lanz was responsible for the launch of

DW-TV Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

, the German global television service.
Christoph Lanz was appointed Director of Television at Deutsche Welle in 2002. During his twelve years as Deutsche Welle's TV- and Multimedia-Director he was responsible for the launch of the Arabic television service and a Hispanic television program. In this capacity, he interviewed among other heads of state Pope Benedict XVI.
Christoph is an honorary fellow of the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

and member of the board of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium in Potsdam, Germany. He is also deputy chairman of the association “Förderverein Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer” which supports the Berlin Wall Foundation.

Awards

RIAS Berlin Commission Award

2010 Christoph Lanz and

Max Hofmann Maximilian Hofmann is a German broadcast journalist who has been the Head of News & Current Affairs of German broadcaster Deutsche Welle since 2020. Early life Hofmann was born in 1974 in Tübingen, West Germany, and grew up in Schwäbisch Hal ...

received the RIAS Berlin Commission New Media Award for their documentary "Eingemauert" or "Walled In". This production is an animated reconstruction of the Berlin Wall and the inner German border and was published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the

Fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanz, Christoph 1959 births Living people German broadcast news analysts German male journalists German male writers German opinion journalists German radio journalists German television reporters and correspondents German television presenters 20th-century German journalists 21st-century German journalists Writers from Darmstadt