“He stood for courage and fairness” – former WDR director Fritz Pleitgen is dead
May 2022: Fritz Pleitgen, pictured here in the living room of his house
What: dpa/dpa/Henning Kaiser
Mourning for Fritz Pleitgen: The renowned TV journalist and former WDR director died at the age of 84. His former broadcaster in Cologne confirmed this and wrote: “In our hearts, the flags are at half-mast.”
DOlder people may remember him as a correspondent in Moscow and Washington. Later he was at the head of the largest ARD broadcaster for twelve years. Now not only the WDR mourns for its former director.
Fritz Pleitgen died on Thursday at the age of 84, West German Broadcasting (WDR) announced on Friday in Cologne.
Born in Westphalia, he had worked as a journalist at WDR since 1963 and was its director from 1995 to 2007 – he was considered one of the most influential German journalists and media makers.
“In the heart the flags are at half-mast”
“Fritz Pleitgen’s death is very sad news for all of us at WDR. In our hearts, the flags are at half-mast,” the broadcaster said in an official statement.
With Pleitgen, a “great captain” has now left the stage of life. It goes on to say that Pleitgen “shaped (have) like no other.” “Fritz Pleitgen stood for courage and fairness, and he loved his WDR,” said the current WDR director and ARD chairman Tom Buhrow. And further: “His charisma goes (…) far beyond this station. He stood for public service broadcasting and its role in society all his life.”
Fritz Pleitgen, here in 1995 as radio director of West German Broadcasting (WDR), in the studio
Source: dpa/Roland Scheidemann
Pleitgen, who was born in Duisburg on March 21, 1938, took his first journalistic steps in Bielefeld. At the age of 14 he began to work as a freelancer for the (now defunct) “Freie Presse”, where he later completed his traineeship. In 1963 he switched to WDR as a reporter for the “Tagesschau”.
Interview with Leonid Brezhnev
Pleitgen made a name for himself from 1970 as a correspondent for the ARD studios in Moscow.
In the middle of the Cold War, he was the first western journalist to conduct an interview with the then General Secretary of the CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev. This was followed in 1977 by a position as a GDR correspondent in East Berlin and from 1982 as ARD studio manager in Washington and New York.
In 1988 Fritz Pleitgen returned to Germany. In Cologne, he took over as editor-in-chief for television, and in 1994 he became director of WDR radio. In 1995 the Broadcasting Council elected him director of West German Broadcasting. In the years that followed, he sharpened the station’s regional programs, initiated the founding of the documentation channel “Phoenix” and the youth station “1LIVE”, and he also paved the way for WDR’s digital expansion.
A heart for the Ruhr area
After leaving WDR in 2007, he committed himself to his homeland, the Ruhr area. His last major project was the Ruhr.2010 Capital of Culture. He was CEO here from 2007 to 2011. As he himself explained, it was important to him to dismantle outdated ideas of the former “coal pot” and to send new pictures of the Ruhr area around the world. When 21 people died in the Love Parade catastrophe in the year of the Capital of Culture, Fritz Pleitgen was one of the few who drove straight to the scene of the accident and publicly acknowledged his moral responsibility.
He was also committed to the German Cancer Aid, of which he was President (2011 to 2021). The disease also affected him personally: In June 2020 he announced that he had pancreatic cancer.
Fritz Pleitgen also published numerous books, some of which became bestsellers. The author and journalist lived in Bergisch Gladbach until his death, leaving behind his wife and four children.