Christoph Sydow (February 11, 1985 – 1 June 2020) was a German journalist who worked for ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East.

Life

Sydow had been interested in political journalism from an early age, often carrying around issues of his later employee's magazine and impressing classmates by acting as a "walking encyclopedia". While working on his degree in

Islamic Studies Islamic studies refers to the academic study of Islam, and generally to academic multidisciplinary "studies" programs—programs similar to others that focus on the history, texts and theologies of other religious traditions, such as Easter ...

at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

, he co-founded the blog in 2005, a platform for students to publish own articles about the Middle East. In 2013, this blog was nominated for the

Grimme Online Award The Grimme-Preis ("Grimme Award"; prior to 2011: Adolf-Grimme-Preis) is one of the most prestigious German television awards. It is named after the first general director of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, Adolf Grimme.zenith The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction (plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The zenith is the "highest" ...

'', an independent German magazine specialized on events in the Arab world. During the Arab Spring in 2011, Sydow first became known to a wider audience by appearing as an expert on the topic in several forms of media. Sydow joined ''

'' in 2012 and soon became their main correspondent in the Middle Eastern region, soon acquiring an internal reputation for his particularly meticulous and precise methods. Sydow, who was married and had two children, took his own life on 1 June 2020.

References

1985 births 2020 deaths 2020 suicides German male journalists Der Spiegel people Suicides in Germany People from Berlin People from Lichtenberg {{Germany-journalist-stub