Berlin. Klaus Bresser was one of the defining figures of German news journalism. Helmut Schmidt, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Gerhard Schröder, Franz Josef Strauß – Bresser had them all in front of the camera. Helmut Kohl told him about the two million marks that bypassed the CDU party coffers.
Now the former ZDF editor-in-chief is dead. He died on Wednesday at the age of 90 in Berlin, as ZDF announced. Bresser was the station's editor-in-chief from 1988 to 2000. “We mourn the loss of a determined defender of the public information mandate,” emphasized director Norbert Himmler. “Klaus Bresser has had a lasting impact on ZDF’s journalistic profile and has always stood for independence and fair treatment.”
For many years, Bresser asked the questions in the political interview series “What now, ...?”, which he established, together with various co-moderators, and in interviews in the “heute journal”. The former n-tv boss Helmut Brandstätter said about him how he was able to probe politicians – that made him “one of the country’s great questioners.”
He needed neither pathos nor volume. “Ask persistently, don’t be satisfied with answers that don’t mean anything, but above all with answers that have nothing to do with the questions, then keep asking, asking questions, wanting to know.” This is how Bresser described his journalistic aspirations. He once said about his profession: “I could never have been anything other than a journalist.” His life motto: “Whoever describes the world as it is will also change it.”
Bresser was born in Berlin in 1936 and his family fled to Aachen towards the end of the Second World War. At the age of twelve he published the handwritten newspaper “Der Kurier”. Relatives and friends can find out about the latest news every week for the price of one mark. “I have always found it interesting to prepare news for others,” said Bresser before his 70th birthday.
At the age of 15, he wrote for the “Aachener Volkszeitung” and the “Aachener Nachrichten”. In addition to studying German, sociology and theater studies in Cologne, he volunteered at the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” from 1958. In 1962 he became chief reporter and accompanied statesmen such as Charles de Gaulle, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev on their travels.
In the mid-1960s, Bresser was drawn to the still young medium of television. He moved to WDR as an editor, where he took over the management of the political magazine “Monitor” in 1971. Two years later he became head of the current editorial team, making election programs and the “Brennpunkt”. He also developed the “Tagesthemen”, the forerunner of today’s “Tagesthemen” in the first.
With his move to ZDF at the end of the 1970s, Bresser's next station followed, the most formative in his career. He played a key role in the conception of the “heute journal”, became a moderator and later director of the magazine.
Bresser is expanding the information share of ZDF, which was previously labeled as an entertainment channel, to more than 40 percent in order to sharpen its profile compared to private channels. Under his aegis, the “Morgenmagazin”, “Mittagsmagazin” and new formats such as “Frontal” and “Bonn Direkt” were introduced and the number of daily news programs was increased. “Maybrit Illner” also goes back to his initiative.
In April 2000, Bresser's term as ZDF editor-in-chief ended, but he initially remained presenter on “Was nun, ...?”. Two years later he moved to the private broadcaster n-tv and took over Erich Böhme's interview program “Talk in Berlin”, where he asked questions until the end of November 2003.
Even when he is no longer in the spotlight, he continues to attend government, embassy and foundation events - often accompanied by his wife Evelyn, who died in March. “I live in Berlin because the music plays here – politically, socially, culturally,” he told the German Press Agency before his 80th birthday. His chosen medium, television, was still close to his heart.
"I want television in which the easy doesn't replace the difficult. Distractions don't crowd out demands, distraction doesn't push out enlightenment," he answers when asked what he wants for his birthday. Television can expect something from the viewer. “When in doubt, I support quality and standards.”
