Lutz Hachmeister


Lutz Hachmeister is a German media historian, award-winning filmmaker and journalist. He particularly gained international attention for directing the 2005 film The Goebbels Experiment, co-produced by the BBC and the Canadian History channel, and featuring Kenneth Branagh as the narrator for the Goebbels Diaries. In 2006 Hachmeister established the Institute for Media and Communication Policy in Berlin and Cologne, which is strongly tied to the Anglo-American media scene.

Academic career

Hachmeister graduated from the University of Münster, writing his doctoral thesis about the history of communication research in Germany. His professorial thesis deals with Franz Six, Adolf Eichmann's superior, who was nominated to rule Great Britain as the head of the SD in case of a German occupation. Hachmeister's book about Six's career was widely recognized as one of the "new biographies" in the 1990s, describing in detail the mentality and role of the young academic elite in shaping the "Third Reich".
Contrary to current trends in media studies and communication research, Hachmeister's "konkrete Kommunikationsforschung" relies heavily on the classical socio-psychological models in US communication studies. He also frequently refers to the Canadian communication theory and the German decisionist law professor Carl Schmitt.

Professional career

As a journalist, Hachmeister worked for several leading German newspapers, such as Der Tagesspiegel, Die Woche and Süddeutsche Zeitung. He is also associate professor for journalism at the University of Dortmund. His research on former Nazi intelligence specialists in the formative years of Germany's leading news magazine Der Spiegel aroused a debate about the history of the paper, which was usually considered to have pure leftist-liberal traditions. Hachmeister's documentary about the life and death of Hanns Martin Schleyer, the former head of the German employers association, who was murdered in 1977 by the Red Army Faction, won a Grimme-Award in 2004. The following year, The Goebbels Experiment premiered at the Berlin film festival und was selected as a New York Times critics' pick.
Hachmeister currently heads the Institute for Media and Communication Policy and is considered to be "Germany's leading media expert". The Institute is particularly known for its high-ranking media colloquia, which host international guests like Alan Rusbridger, Greg Dyke or Norman Pearlstine. Hachmeister is also the founder of the Cologne Conference, a "media Bauhaus" and festival for aesthetic and strategic trends in the audiovisual industry.

Selected films