Biography
After school, he studied economics in his hometown in the post-war years, graduating with a diploma. Following an editorial traineeship, Böhme worked as a news editor at the "United Economic Services" and then at the "Deutsche Zeitung". In 1958 he joined the Bonn editorial team of the news magazine "Der Spiegel" as a business correspondent. In 1969, Erich Böhme took over the management of the Bonn Spiegel editorial team.
In 1973 he replaced Günter Gaus as editor-in-chief of the magazine. During this activity, the journalist maintained personal contacts in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Federal Chancellery without ever giving up his critical distance from the government on the matter. Under Böhme's 17-year editorial leadership, "Der Spiegel" proved to be a pioneer of investigative journalism in the Federal Republic by repeatedly drawing attention to itself by revealing political affairs.
At "Spiegel" he was also responsible for reporting on the "Barschel affair". Böhme described the revelations by Prime Minister Barschel's media officer at the time, Reiner Pfeiffer, about the manipulations in the 1987 Schleswig-Holstein state election campaign as the highlight of his career. Due to internal differences, particularly with the editor Rudolf Augstein, Böhme left the Spiegel editorial team at the end of 1989. Almost a year later, the journalist took over the publishing of the former East Berlin SED organ "Berliner Zeitung", which he continued until the end of 1994.
At the same time, Böhme also entered TV journalism from 1990 onwards: as the presenter of the Sunday talk show "Talk im Turm", he significantly increased the reputation of the private broadcaster SAT.1 until 1998, as he moderated the political discussion round with high journalistic standards of topicality and critical moderation designed and implemented. Since 1997, Böhme has also directed the talk show "Grüner Salon" together with Heinz Eggert for the news channel n.tv. After the federal election in September 1998, he left SAT.1 to move to n.tv.
From 2000 onwards, Böhme also moderated the talk show "Talk in Berlin" for the Berlin news channel. On September 30, 2002, the "veteran" of German television appeared on his talk show for the last time and then retired into private life. Böhme has received numerous honors for his journalistic work. In 1991 he received the Bavarian Television Prize, and in 1994 "Hörzu" awarded him the "Golden Camera".
After three divorced marriages, Erich Böhme lived with the former GDR news anchor Angelika Unterlauf since the beginning of 2003, whom he married on August 17, 2004. On February 27, 2007, Böhme moderated the program "People at Maischberger" as a replacement for Sandra Maischberger, who was taking a maternity leave of several weeks.
Erich Böhme died on November 28, 2009 as a result of long-term cancer.
