 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in German. (February 2019)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Stefan Aust | |
|---|---|
 Aust in 2014 | |
| Born | 1 July 1946 (1946-07) (age 79) Stade, Germany |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | Editor-in-chief ofDer Spiegel (1994–2008) Publisher ofDie Welt (2014–today) |
Stefan Aust (German:[ˈʃtɛ.fanaʊ̯st]ⓘ; born 1 July 1946) is a German journalist. He was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazineDer Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008 and has been the publisher of the conservative leadingDie Welt newspaper since 2014 and the paper's editor until December 2016.[1]
Aust was born inStade, Lower Saxony as son of the farmer Reinhard Aust and his wife Ilse, born Hartig. Together with four siblings he grew up on a small dairy farm which his family ran until the early 1960s. His father immigrated toAmerica at the age of 18 and returned to Germany in the summer of 1939. His grandfather was a merchant and shipowner.
Aust graduated from high school at the Athenaeum in Stade and gained his first journalistic experience working for the local school newspaper "Wir", through which he also got to know the journalistHenryk M. Broder. Aust dropped out of business studies after a few weeks.
Via Wolfgang Röhl, Klaus Rainer Röhl's younger brother, whom he met at the school newspaper, Aust came to the magazinekonkret after graduating from high school, where he was initially in charge of the magazines layout. From 1966 to 1969 Aust then worked as an editor forkonkret and later for theSt. Pauli-Nachrichten [de]. In 1969, Aust traveled to the United States for half a year.
From 1970 he worked for theNorddeutscher Rundfunk. He was a television journalist at NDR and worked for the political television magazine “Panorama” from 1972 to 1987.[2]
Since 1987 Aust built the new “Spiegel TV” on behalf ofRudolf Augstein. Later, despite strong resistance from the Spiegel editorial team, he also took over the mother ship, the “Spiegel”. He was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazineDer Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008.[3][1]
Since 2014, he is the publisher of the conservative leaning newspaperDie Welt. Until December 2016, he was also the paper's editor.
Two of Aust's books have been made into films:Der Pirat 1997 byBernd Schadewald [de] andThe Baader Meinhof Complex 2008 byUli Edel.[4][5]
Aust has repeatedly expressedscepticism about the causes and consequences of global warming and dismissal of measures against climate change and of proponents of such measures.[6][7][8]
Former Spiegel editor Oliver Gehrs wrote about Aust's influence on Spiegel in his 2005 book "The Spiegel-Complex". In it he argues that Aust was never "left-wing" - he acted on the left for decades, but probably never thought so. Aust is an anti-intellectual who is not attracted by the political debate, but by the noise. "It wasn't the political debate that appealed to him, but the action."[9]
In 2014, Aust became editor of the newspaper "Welt", which was published by Springer Verlag, which he fought against for decades.
Aust was a longtime defender of the former Spiegel editorMatthias Matussek [de], who also switched toWelt in 2013 but got fired in 2015 as he was drifting to theNew Right and its German movementNeue Rechte.[10]
In 2010 Aust was awarded the Mercator Visiting Professorship for Political Management at theUniversity of Duisburg-Essen'sNRW School of Governance. He gave seminars and lectures at the university.[11]
