Guido Knopp

Guido Knopp, born on 29 January 1948 in Treysa, Hesse, is a German journalist and author who became well known in Germany as the producer of a great number of television documentaries, mostly on the Third Reich and National Socialism but also on subjects such as Stalinism. After a doctorate in history and political science he worked as a newspaper editor at Welt am Sonntag and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and in 1978 joined the broadcaster ZDF, where his series include Hitlers Helfer, Hitler, Eine Bilanz and Die SS, as well as the year-by-year review 100 Jahre, der Countdown (1999). He hosted the weekly ZDF programme History and received the Goldene Kamera in 2004. His popular television history has drawn criticism: commentators have accused it of presenting the Third Reich too superficially, and in 2004 a group of international historians warned that such documentaries risked reducing history to infotainment.