Author / Hamburg
Environment, Science, Social
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Life
Markus Wanzeck has been with Zeitenspiegel Reportagen since 2011, working as a reporter, editor, and project manager. Since March 2025, he has been a member of the editorial team for the environmental magazine. Atmosphere. From 2014 to 2023, he held various roles (Editor-in-Chief, Editor, Reporter) at the environmental magazine Nature. From 2008 to 2011, he worked at the journalism agency Textsalon Berlin, which he co-founded. He studied philosophy and sociology in Munich and Sydney, Australia, and attended the Zeitenspiegel reportage school in Reutlingen.
For his journalistic work, he has received several grants and awards and was nominated for the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize and the German Reporter Prize. As a media ambassador fellow of the Robert Bosch Foundation, he was a guest journalist at the daily newspaper in 2009. China Daily in Beijing and in 2017 with the Indian environmental magazine Down to Earth in Delhi. In 2024, he was a visiting journalist at the Hungarian online magazine as part of an IJP scholarship Bordeaux in Budapest.
Research took him to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Australia, China, India, Iceland, Italy, Malawi, Nepal, Austria, Rwanda, Sweden, Hungary, and Vietnam, among other places; for some years now, he has only traveled terrestrially.
His articles appear in, among others, Atmosphere, NZZ on Sunday Switzerland, Profile (Austria), Spiegel Knowledge, Stern and The time.
He is on the board of the German-Chinese Media Network (from 2011 to 2023 as Chairman) and, since its founding in 2008, a member of Freelance writer, the professional association of freelance journalists. Together with Anne Klesse, he heads the Hamburg Independent Writers Regional Group. Since 2023, he has been on the board of Gabriel-Grüner-Stipendium e.V., which manages the scholarship of the same name and the Hansel-Mieth Prize forgives.
Awards and Scholarships:
- 2025 „SoJo Europe“ Research Grant from Journalismfund Europe
- 2024 German-Middle Eastern Scholarship Program of the International Journalists' Programmes e.V. (IJP)
- 2017 Media Ambassadors India – Germany Journalist Exchange Program Scholarship
- 2016 Nomination for the Henri Nannen Award / Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for Reportage
- 2014 Nominated for „Best Freelance Reporter“ at the German Reporter Award
- 2014 German-Asian Scholarship Program of the International Journalists Programs (IJP)
- 2012 Nomination for the Kindernothilfe Media Award
- 2011 Gabriel-Grüner Scholarship for Dedicated Photo and Text Reportage
- 2010 Research Program „Germany and China – Moving Together“
- 2009 contextual research grant
- 2009 Journalist Exchange Program Media Ambassadors China-Germany Scholarship
- 2008 Selection for the „Top 30 under 30“ by the Medium Magazine
- 2007 Marion Dönhoff Award from the Robert Bosch Foundation
Projects
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageCrash course with the dropouts
Author Markus Wanzeck
Published on „Zeit Online“ on December 26, 2022Out of the hamster wheel, into the new "us": Eco-communities like Schloss Tonndorf already have waiting lists. A week there shows what is wishful thinking and what is reality.
Published on Zeit Online.
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportFatal Ban
Author Markus Wanzeck
Published in „Die Zeit“ on May 5, 2022After their takeover in Afghanistan, the Taliban promised that girls would be allowed to go to school until graduation. The opposite happened.
Published in The time 19/2022.
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageA travel journey
Author Markus Wanzeck
Published in „Nature“ 05/22Once an adventure for the chosen few, travel has become a mass consumer good, with high environmental and climate costs. What is it that draws us out into the wide world? And how do we find what we're looking for without destroying it? A search for answers – by long-distance bus, by train, on foot.
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageBlooming landscapes?
Author Markus Wanzeck
Published in „Nature“ 11/2021The age of coal is in its final throes. However, the opencast mines in the Lusatian lignite mining region have swallowed up dozens of villages and hundreds of square kilometers. What will become of the wounds they have torn into the landscape?
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Markus Wanzeck, Reportage, Uli ReinhardtThe Flying Classroom
Author Markus Wanzeck, photographer Uli Reinhardt
Published in the „Frankfurter Rundschau“ on July 22, 2021In Afghanistan, education is often life-threatening. But the organization Ofarin doesn't just give the country's children hope.
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageCattle, to the sun, to freedom!
Author Markus Wanzeck
Published in „Die Zeit“ 11/2021For decades, the Maiers have fought on their farm on the edge of the Swabian Jura to ensure their livestock live with dignity and die without suffering.
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Markus Wanzeck, Rainer Kwiotek, ReportageMagic Mountain
Author Markus Wanzeck, photographer Rainer Kwiotek
Published in „Nature“ 12/20Our author drives to Berchtesgaden with great anticipation. And finds herself in a fairytale alpine world where witches slumber, wondrous things happen, and a stone king reigns above it all.
For Publication »
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageThe Food Savers
Author Markus Wanzeck, Photographer Kathrin Harms
Published in „Nature“ 01/20Vast amounts of food are thrown away. Two Berlin-based startups have found new ways to save food from the bin. One puts it on supermarket shelves. The other serves it in a restaurant.
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Markus Wanzeck, Reportage, Sascha MontagNaked lecture with Poseidon
Author Markus Wanzeck, photographer Sascha Montag
Published on „Spiegel Online“ on October 29, 2019When the GDR imploded, the last government decree in 1990 placed almost five percent of the state's territory under nature protection – a surprise coup by environmental activists led by Michael Succow. Since then, they have achieved a great deal, worldwide.
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Interview, Markus WanzeckOn the mountain with... Reinhold Messner
Author Markus Wanzeck, Photographer Alexander Alber
Published in „Nature“ 11/19The South Tyrolean extreme mountaineer has climbed all 14 eight-thousanders on Earth, crossed scorching and icy deserts, and even survived five years in the EU Parliament. However, his possibly greatest adventure still lies ahead.
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Markus Wanzeck, ReportageThat's how it falls into place
Author Markus Wanzeck, Photographer Fabian Weiss
Appeared in „Nature“ 10/19Almost 40 years ago, Heini Staudinger opened his first shoe store – he begged his friends for the money. Today, he runs the Waldviertler shoe workshop, an anti-globalization company that produces locally, socially, and sustainably. And it became known because it begged its friends for money.
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Christoph Püschner, Markus Wanzeck, ReportageModel Town for the Energy Transition
Author Markus Wanzeck, photographer Christoph Püschner
Appeared in „Stern“ 45/2018The world's largest passive house settlement is being built in Heidelberg. The low-energy construction district will soon be surpassed by replicas in China.