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After schooling in Switzerland, he passed his high school diploma in Kassel in 1943. In 1945, the young Scholl-Latour joined the French parachute troops, with whom he fought in Indochina. Returning to Germany, Scholl-Latour turned to journalism in 1948. After a traineeship at the "Saarbrücker Zeitung" he worked as an editor for the same paper from 1950 onwards. Until 1954 he also wrote as a journalist and travel correspondent for other German daily newspapers such as the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" and the "Kölnische Rundschau". He also worked for radio stations. From his parallel studies in Mainz, Paris and Beirut from 1950 to 1957, Peter Scholl-Latour acquired academic degrees in philology, political science and Arabic studies, including a doctorate from the University of Paris. On his numerous trips abroad in the 1950s, Scholl-Latour took on reports for radio stations in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Indochina, Turkey, Persia, Southeast Asia, Latin America and North African countries.
His work abroad was interrupted in 1954/55 by a temporary role as spokesman for the Saarland government. He then worked as a Middle East correspondent from Lebanon in 1956/57. During the Congo crisis of 1960, Scholl-Latour reported from Leopoldville, from where he worked as a permanent Africa correspondent for ARD until 1963 after the African country's independence. From 1963 to 1969, the foreign journalist worked as head of the ARD France studio in Paris. From there he also undertook several trips that took him to Australia and several times to the Middle East and Vietnam. After his recall from Paris, Scholl-Latour worked as director of WDR's first television program until 1971. He then moved to ZDF in 1971, where he was appointed special correspondent in Paris. As such, he continued his work as a correspondent abroad in the following years. In 1973, Scholl-Latour was briefly captured by the Viet Cong in Vietnam.
Although the journalist took over the management of the ZDF studio in Paris from 1975, he undertook further correspondent trips to Vietnam (1976) and Canada (1978) as well as to Iran (1979), Cambodia (1980), China and Afghanistan (1981). As a result of the "Stern" scandal surrounding the fake Hitler diaries, Scholl-Latour was appointed to the board of Gruner + Jahr publishing house in the spring of 1983 in order to repair the magazine's tarnished image as editor-in-chief. However, working in the magazine was not to the satisfaction of the journalist, who resigned from the editor-in-chief in 1984 and finally withdrew from the board of Gruner + Jahr in 1988. Instead, Scholl-Latour began working for the "Rheinischer Merkur" in 1988. In the years that followed, he drew attention to himself through historical and current affairs documentaries for television.
The recognized journalist and correspondent also conveyed his extensive experience abroad to an interested reading public through numerous publications. His best-known non-fiction books include accounts of the Congo, France and China, and Islam. Scholl-Latour has received several journalism awards such as the Golden Camera and the Bavarian Television Honorary Award. In 1999 he received an honorary professorship from the Ruhr University in Bochum. For his journalistic life's work, Scholl-Latour was awarded the "Siebenpfeiffer Prize" in mid-November 2003, which is awarded to journalists who are particularly committed to democracy and humanitarianism. In May 2005, Scholl-Latour was awarded the Henri Nannen Prize by the publishing house "Gruner + Jahr" and the magazine "Stern" for his journalistic life's work. In 2006 he received the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. One of his last publications was the title "The World Out of Joints" in 2012.
Peter Scholl-Latour died on August 16, 2014 in Rhöndorf.
