WDR-Intendant and ARD-Chairman Tom Buhrow: “Gerd Ruge was one of the great reporter personalities of the first hour. Profound analyzes, precise interviews and the ability to explain complex interrelationships in an easily understandable way were what set him apart. He was a valuable contemporary witness of important political events at home and abroad Abroad. His numerous foreign reports and travelogues remain unforgettable. The audience loved him for that. For many subsequent generations of journalists he was a role model and orientation. I will miss his sympathetic and humble manner. “
Gerd Ruge, born on August 9, 1928 in Hamburg, began his professional career in 1949 as an editor at what was then Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. In 1956 he went to Moscow as the first permanent correspondent from the Federal Republic for ARD. In 1964 he became America and Washington correspondent for ARD. In the early 1970s, the ARD-Chef correspondent for the management of the Bonner WDR-Studios. From 1977 to 1981 Ruge worked as a ARD– Radio correspondent in Moscow. He directed the political magazine “Monitor”, founded and directed the “Weltspiegel” and was editor-in-chief for two years WDR TV. After six years of running the Muscovite ARD-Studios Gerd Ruge retired on September 1st, 1993. He continued to work as a freelance journalist and delighted viewers with his travel reports entitled “Gerd Ruge on the Road”.
Gerd Ruge was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class and received many important awards, including three Grimme Prizes and the Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize. The Film- und Medienstiftung has been writing since 2002 NRW once a year the Gerd Ruge scholarship endowed with 100,000 euros.