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Joachim Jauer (1940-2022): In 2002 he retired as studio manager in Berlin
Photo: Sven Lambert / IMAGO
Former ZDF correspondent Joachim Jauer is dead. Jauer died on Friday at the age of 82, as ZDF announced on Monday in Mainz.
Born in Berlin, he was a correspondent in the GDR for many years during his ZDF career, editor and presenter of the magazine "kennzeichen D" and head of the Berlin state studio.
ZDF editor-in-chief Peter Frey praised Jauer as a "bridge builder between East and West".
"For many years, Joachim Jauer was the man who explained the East to ZDF viewers," says von Frey.
For three decades he reported authentically, knowledgeably and from his own perspective, among other things, from the GDR.
Joachim Jauer, born on July 26, 1940 in Berlin, joined ZDF in 1965.
From 1978 to 1982 he headed the station's office in the GDR and also lived in East Berlin during this time.
He then took over the editing of the magazine "Label D", for which he had previously worked as a reporter.
Jauer experienced the years leading up to the turnaround in the GDR as head of the ZDF studio in Vienna and correspondent for Eastern Europe.
On May 2, 1989, he was the only West German television correspondent to report on the dismantling of the border fortifications by Hungarian border troops.
Jauer formulated on this day: »Today, the forty-year division of Europe into East and West ends here.
This will have unforeseeable consequences - for Europe, for the Germans in the Federal Republic and especially in the GDR.«
In 1990 he moved back to Berlin to »License D«.
Jauer once told the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung that he understood the "D" in the title of the program that had been broadcast since 1971 "above all as a D for interpreter" - he meant translating between East and West.
In 1999, Joachim Jauer took over the management of the ZDF regional studio in Berlin until he left in June 2002. When ZDF reported in a controversial documentary about Stasi involvement in the station in 2006, it was up to Jauer to ensure the historical context.
feb/AFP