In Berlin and beyond, Jürgen Engert was considered a critical spirit and a good observer of East-West politics. The former ARD journalist and editor-in-chief of the broadcaster Free Berlin died on Sunday. He was 85 years old.
The journalist Jürgen Engert is dead. According to rbb information, he died on Sunday at the age of 85.
Engert was editor-in-chief of the Sender Freies Berlin (SFB-Fernsehen) from 1987 to 1998 and from 1998 until his retirement in 2001 he was the founding director of the ARD capital studio in Berlin. From 1984 to 1998 he moderated the political magazine “Kontraste” on ARD. In total, Engert worked for ARD for 17 years. He was considered a critical observer of East-West politics, which he commented and analyzed from Berlin.
rbb director Patricia Schlesinger paid tribute to Jürgen Engert on Sunday as a formative television journalist in the Federal Republic of Germany. “His work at Kontraste and, above all, his contributions to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany are anchored in the memory of the country. His journalistic work went hand in hand with his creative creative drive and his skills as a team player,” explained Schlesinger.
“We still benefit from his work in the ARD capital studio, for example. We are very sad that he left, our thoughts and our sympathy go to his wife and family.”
Jürgen Engert came from Dresden, he studied history, German and philosophy at the Free University in Berlin and in Munich. After a traineeship, he worked for more than ten years as a political editor at Berlin’s “Der Abend”, of which he eventually became editor-in-chief. It was from this time that he was awarded the Theodor Wolff Prize. After working as a freelance journalist, he joined the broadcaster Free Berlin (SFB) as head of the politics department in 1983, and in 1987 he became editor-in-chief of SFB television. He became known to a wide audience as a commentator and moderator of the political magazine “Kontraste”, which he took over in 1986 and kept until 1998.
When the ARD capital studio opened in Berlin in 1999, Jürgen Engert was the founding director, and in the following years he established the studio as an authority for political reporting in the capital. In 2001 he retired and received the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin in 2002. rbb director Patricia Schlesinger emphasized: “Jürgen Engert never took himself more seriously than the topics he reported on. His critical awareness and his clear analyzes were often a role model for us and remain an incentive for us.”
Broadcast: Inforadio, August 22nd, 2021, 12 noon