Born in Darmstadt in 1959, the journalist Christoph Lanz has worked at Deutsche Welle television since it went on the air on April 1, 1992. The station was made possible by the breakup of the Berlin broadcaster RIAS-TV, whose studios DW took over - and for whom Christoph Lanz had worked as editor-in-chief. For the next ten years, he served as editor-in-chief at DW before being named Director of Television in 2002. Among his personal highlights of his career so far is an interview with Pope Benedict XVI, which he was allowed to conduct as one of four German journalists ahead of the Pontiff's visit to Germany, on August 5, 2006, at Castel Gandolfo. The 52-year-old is also proud of the sweeping reorganization of Deutsche Welle's television programming, which since February 2012 has been broadcast in German, English, Spanish and Arabic. Christoph Lanz is married and the father of two sons and lives and works in Berlin.