Claus-Detlev Walter Kleber (born September 2, 1955) is a German journalist and former lawyer. He is a former anchor of the Heute-journal, an evening news program on the German public television station ZDF. He also reported on U.S. politics and German-American relations, themes covered in a book published by him in 2005, Amerikas Kreuzzüge ("America's Crusades").
Early life
Claus Kleber was born in
Reutlingen,
Germany.
He attended Otto Hahn Gymnasium in Bergisch Gladbach, and completed his
Abitur in 1974. During his schooling, Kleber freelanced as a local reporter for the newspaper
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. From 1974, he studied law at the University of Tübingen, and spent two semesters abroad, in
Lausanne,
Switzerland, in 1978 and 1979. Kleber passed his first
Staatsexamen in law in the autumn of 1980, followed by further training in
Stuttgart. In 1983, he completed his second Staatsexamen and then undertook extended dissertation research stays in New York City and Washington, D.C. He received scholarships from
Studienstiftung and DAAD for this research. Afterwards, he worked as a lawyer for a law firm in Stuttgart, specializing in
commercial law and
competition law. In 1986, he completed his PhD in law under Thomas Oppermann at the University of Tübingen.
Career
Radio and television
During his law studies, Kleber freelanced as a radio reporter and anchor for a public broadcasting service, and he became a journalist after completing his PhD. During the 1980s, he worked as the Washington correspondent for
Deutschlandfunk (DLF), a German public broadcaster. In the spring of 1989, Kleber returned to Germany as Chief Editor of RIAS, a broadcaster in Berlin under the control of the United States Information Agency.
From 1990, he worked for 12 years as Senior Correspondent and Bureau Chief for ARD, one of the two nationwide German public television networks.[
]
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Interview: Claus Kleber and Condoleezza Rice as well as Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. In June 2002, Kleber moved to London as ARD Bureau Chief.
A few months later, he became managing editor and principal anchor of Heute-journal, the 30-minute late-evening news show of ZDF, the other nationwide public television channel in Germany.
Documentaries
Kleber has produced documentary films in partnership with Angela Andersen, these include
India – Unstoppable which was released for the DVD market in 2006.
[ DVD details from amazon.de]
They later also made documentaries for broadcasting, such as The Bomb (2009), about nuclear threats in the 21st century,
In 2017, their 90-minute report on human rights, Unantastbar (Inviolable), won the Silver Award at the New York Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Monaco Film Festival.
In 2021, ZDF aired "We have the better story," a 40-minute conversation between Kleber and U.S. President Barack Obama discussing his achievements and shortcomings.
Books
Kleber's book
Amerikas Kreuzzüge ('America's Crusades') won the 2005 Corine Literature Prize for Best Non-Fiction.
Shortly before the 2008 presidential election, Kleber published an updated edition reflecting developments and candidates. In 2012, Kleber published
Spielball Erde about the global strategic consequences of
Climate change.
Further information
Since 2015, Claus Kleber has been an Honorary Professor at his alma mater, the University of Tübingen.
He is a member of Atlantik-Brücke, an organization promoting cultural, economic, and military cooperation between Germany and the United States.
[Marc Stegherr: Der neue Kalte Krieg der Medien: Die Medien Osteuropas und der neue Ost-West-Konflikt, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2018, p. 62.]
Recognition
Kleber is the recipient of several awards, including the Media prize of the
Johanna Quandt Foundation (1998) for economic reporting,
the RIAS TV prize (1997, 1999 and 2003), and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis (the German equivalent of the American
Emmy Awards) in 2005,
2006 and 2013
(
Heute-journal as best German news program). Claus Kleber and his ZDF partner anchor
Marietta Slomka, were awarded the
Grimme-Preis (Grimme Prize) in 2009 for their merits in the evolution of television.
In 2010, he won the Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Award for Outstanding Journalism.
His documentary work on global challenges (with Angela Andersen) received the Deutscher Fernsehpreis for
The Bomb in 2009
and the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis for
HUNGER! DURST! in 2015.
In a 2018 survey conducted by
Forsa Institute, he was voted Germany's most trusted news presenter.
[ Vertrauenswürdigster Nachrichtenmoderator ist Claus Kleber Der Tagesspiegel, 21 March 2018.]
Awards
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1998: Preis der RIAS Berlin Kommission für die Fernsehproduktion Pioneer Square (ARD-Studio Washington zusammen mit Tom Buhrow, Sabine Reifenberg)
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1999: Fernsehpreis der RIAS Berlin Kommission für die Produktion Oh Gott, Amerika! Glaube, Seelen, Scharlatane (ARD-Studio Washington zusammen mit Tom Buhrow, Georg Kellermann, Sabine Reifenberg)
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1999: Herbert Quandt Medien-Preis der Johanna-Quandt-Stiftung
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2004: Hildegard von Bingen Prize for Journalism
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2004: Fernsehpreis der RIAS Berlin Kommission für die Produktion Allmacht Amerika. Die Welt im Griff (ZDF, zusammen mit der Filmemacherin Angela Andersen)
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2005: Corine, internationaler Literaturpreis für das Buch Amerikas Kreuzzüge – Was die Weltmacht treibt
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2006: Carl-Schurz-Plakette der State Legislative Leaders Foundation
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2005: Deutscher Fernsehpreis für die beste Moderation einer Informationssendung
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2006: Deutscher Fernsehpreis für die Moderation der „Besten Informationssendung“ (ZDF spezial: Krieg ohne Ende)
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2006: LUCHS (Juli) für das Jugendbuch Nachrichten, die Geschichte machten. Von der Antike bis heute
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2008: Nominierung für den Bambi 2008 (Kategorie Moderation)
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2008: Politikjournalist des Jahres 2008 von Medium Magazin
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2009: Adolf-Grimme-Preis des Jahres 2009 – Besondere Ehrung des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes (gemeinsam mit Marietta Slomka)
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2009: Deutscher Fernsehpreis für die beste Reportage (Die Bombe), gemeinsam mit Angela Andersen
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2010: Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Preis für Fernsehjournalismus
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2010: Krawattenmann des Jahres
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2013: Goldene Kamera (Beste Information – Bester Anchorman)
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2013: Karl-Carstens-Preis des Freundeskreis der Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik e. V.
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2015: Bayerischer Fernsehpreis zusammen mit Angela Andersen als Autoren der zweiteiligen Dokumentation Hunger! Durst! (ZDF)
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2017: Schöne Neue Welt – Wie Silicon Valley unsere Zukunft bestimmt, Silver World Medal. New York Film Festival 2017, nominiert „Beste Dokumentation“ beim TV Festival Monte Carlo, Special Selection „Science Film Festival“
Bibliography
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Kleber, Claus and Paskal, Cleo (2012). Spielball Erde. Machtkämpfe im Klimawandel. (in German) (original ed.). München: C. Bertelsmann Verlag. .
External links
