Dr Norbert Himmler has taken the helm as new Director General of Germany’s ZDF, succeeding Dr Thomas Bellut, who led the broadcaster for the past 10 years.

Norbert Himmler joined ZDF as a freelancer in the news department in 1997. In 2012 he was appointed Programme Director at ZDF, responsible for fiction, shows, music, comedy, children, culture, history and science. He was also responsible for ZDFneo and Chair of 3sat, the free-to-air cultural channel jointly operated by public broadcasters from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In 2018 he took part in setting up the European Alliance with France Télévisions and RAI for the production of joint European series and in 2019 concluded an agreement with the BBC to collaborate more extensively on joint television projects. Also in 2019, he launched the digital culture platform ZDFkultur together with German cultural institutions.

Born in Mainz, Norbert Himmler holds a doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich at Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science, Department of International Politics.