27.02.2026
This year's Hansel-Mieth-Prize goes to author Julia Kopatzki and photographer Roderick Aichinger for their contribution „Finally Alone,“ published in Mirror For a week, the reporting team accompanied young people at a tent camp in Italy – at a time when a lot is being said about young people and their problems, but rarely with them.
The jury's reasoning: „In the text, Julia Kopatzki never talks down to the teenagers; she takes them seriously. With a language of elegant lightness, she opens up the world of adolescents to the reader without ever being preachy. Roderick Aichinger succeeds in capturing adolescents in unguarded moments where they are not posing for the camera or for a digital self-image. This creates intimacy without exhibitionism. Both artists simply let the adolescents be who they are.“
The following reports were also awarded. They will be published together with the winning entry in the anthology „Hansel-Mieth-Preis 2026“ (Schwoerer Verlag); also included in the anthology will be the report supported by last year's Gabriel Grüner Scholarship, as well as the winning story of this year's Gabriel Grüner School Prize. This anthology will be sent out as a documentation and thank you to all participants and supporters of the prizes and the scholarship.
Which child gets to live? Which one doesn't?
Johannes Teschner
Photos: Daniel Pilar
Geo
Tell me where the flowers are
Roland Schulz
Photos: Ricardo Wiesinger
Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine
Original Sin
Katja Bernardy, Johannes Dudziak, Britta Stuff
Photos: Thomas Pirot
Zeit Magazine
Even neo-Nazis like to swim
Dmitrij Kapitelman
Photos: Felix Adler
Zeit Magazine
„We'll pick you up now.“
Dialika Neufeld
Photos: Anne Ackermann, Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen
The Mirror
The Shadows of Victory
Wolfgang Bauer
Photos: Emile Ducke
The time
They thought they would grow old here
Paul Weinheimer
Photos: Friedrich J. Richter
The time
An almost impossible mission
Gabriela Herpell
Photos: Emily Garthwaite
Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine
A man walks into a car dealership
Henning Sußebach
Photos: Nikita Teryoshin
The time
The Reporters' Community Zeitenspiegel Reports reminds, with the prize, which will be awarded for the 28th time in 2026, of its honorary member Johanna „Hansi“ Mieth, who died in 1998 and worked as a photojournalist for the American magazine Life dedicated to social issues. The prize honors outstanding committed reports. Text and photos are evaluated equally.
This year, 168 applications were submitted for the Hansel-Mieth Prize. It is endowed with 6,000 euros. The awards ceremony will take place on June 24, 2026, at 7 p.m. in the Fellbach Town Hall (near Stuttgart).
The jury of the 2026 Hansel Mieth Prize
Amrai Coen (Editor, Dossier), The time; Chairperson of the Jury), Ingrid Eißele (Zeitenspiegel Reports), Cornelia Fuchs (Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Star), Anton Hunger (Publicist and Author), Georg Mair (Editor-in-Chief of ff – The South Tyrolean Weekly Magazine), Stephanie Nannen (Journalist), Vivian Pasquet (Editor, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine), Oda Schäfer (Producer), Alexander Smoltczyk (Reporter, The Mirror), Barbara Stauss (freelance photo editor), Jonas Wresch (freelance photographer)