For decades Günther Jauch has been one of the most familiar faces on German television, and while his career spans radio, sports and talk shows, his defining role remains that of the host of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Jauch stirs strong reactions. Some viewers can barely stand hearing his name, yet the Münster native is one of Germany’s most popular presenters, and it is easy to imagine him winning high office if he ever ran for it. As the face of the country’s most famous quiz show, he has occasionally frustrated audience members hoping for their own shot at glory, leaving them stuck in their seats behind the cameras, watching the clock while he chatted, joked and drew out the contestant in front of him. The questions became almost an afterthought, and this is exactly where Jauch thrives, gently exposing a guest’s quirks and weaknesses with a smile and revealing something true about human nature in the process.
That instinct is not something many broadcasters are born with. Jauch himself likely did not list it on his application to the German School of Journalism, which followed a hard-won high school diploma, often cited alongside his 3.1 grade average, and an abandoned law degree. But his deep curiosity about other people’s lives, paired with a knack for coaxing out secrets through a kind of feigned awkwardness, gave his otherwise measured style a distinctive charm.
His interest in sport and current affairs took the former altar boy to Bavarian Radio, where he could quietly indulge his passions until, as the story goes, Thomas Gottschalk drew him into the world of entertainment. The two became friends and co-hosted the B3 Radio Show, remembered fondly by some as a golden era of radio, with the meticulous Jauch and the laid-back Gottschalk sparring playfully and bringing a rare hint of anarchy to the German airwaves.
At 29, Jauch moved into television, continuing at BR before joining ZDF in 1986, where he co-hosted Sag die Wahrheit and fronted Na siehste. In 1988 the network brought him onto das aktuelle sportstudio, where he reviewed the week’s sport with quiet humour and his trademark touch of awkwardness.
He could be a little cheekier at RTL. Rather than resting on his success, he went on to Stern TV, hosting it nearly 900 times before Steffen Hallaschka eventually took over. He also covered the Champions League, memorably riffing with Marcel Reif on the absurdities of football and life after a goalpost collapsed in Madrid. Even so, the peak of his career remains his turn as the master of questions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
On that show Jauch could be unapologetically sharp, sending baffled contestants home empty-handed and drawing on the uneven educational fortunes of his guests. For years the format pulled in dream ratings of more than 12 million viewers an episode, helped by his sure sense of suspense and his display of general knowledge, which earned him a reputation, perhaps not entirely deserved, as one of the sharpest minds in the business. The show is well past its heyday, but Jauch is unbothered, happily fronting colourful specials with twins, retirees and celebrities that grow sillier by the year, a sign he still enjoys the work.
His enthusiasm seemed to fade faster at ARD, where he took on a politically weighty talk show, staged in a former Berlin gasometer, that never quite found its footing. Too reliant on his cards and often too stiff, he struggled to unsettle his well-prepared guests the way he could on the quiz show. The Potsdam resident, who now steps back from television life as a winemaker, eventually handed the reins back to Anne Will and returned his focus to RTL.
There, alongside his old friend Gottschalk, he played chaotic but entertaining studio games against the audience, let Barbara Schöneberger order him around and laughed like a child at his colleague’s jokes. That show has since ended, in part because of Gottschalk’s serious illness. The finest moments were always the unscripted ones, when the two simply chatted, joked and teased each other, a kind of spontaneous, intelligent fun that has grown scarce on German television.
On 13 July, the most German of German presenters, an underrated football expert and devoted newspaper reader, turns 70. It is nowhere near a reason for him to leave the screen, or to stop enjoying the glowing tributes written about him.
