Michael Naumann

Michael Naumann studied political science, philosophy, and history in Munich and Oxford. He worked as a journalist for Der Spiegel and Die Zeit (as publisher and chief editor, 2001–07). Between 1985 and 1995, he was head of Rowohlt Verlag, one of the largest trade publishers in Germany, and then, until 1998, he ran Metropolitan Books (which he founded) and Henry Holt Inc. in New York as CEO and president. For two years he was Germany’s first Federal Cultural Minister in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder. At the moment he is on leave from Die Zeit, running for mayor of Hamburg on the Social Democratic ticket.