Recommendations of the editorial team
Kurt Krömer has recorded an episode for his “Feelings” podcast with Thilo Mischke. The episode has been online since Thursday, April 24th. On the subject, she has mixed handle handling of the articles in which his work was criticized and the subsequent termination of the contract with regard to his moderation of the ARD culture magazine “Title, Theses, Temperaments”. He also confessed to Krömer his fear that he was even afraid of everything.
Excitement around Thilo Mischke as a co-moderator-what had happened?
From February 2025, the journalist and author Thilo Mischke should actually be in front of the camera as the new co-moderator of “TTT”. But shortly after the announcement, old allegations against the 44-year-old became public. Above all, his book “In 80 women around the world” from 2010 was criticized as women hostile. The contents of the former travel report, in which Mischke writes about sexual encounters in a casual language, caused many doubts about its suitability for a cultural ARD figure.
In the episode “The Causa TtThilo Mischke” of the “Feminist Shelf Control” podcast from December 2024, journalists Annika Brockschmidt, Rebekka Endler and Anja Rützel spoke about why they would not consider Thilo Mischke to be a suitable host for the ARD culture magazine. They stated that the journalist “proven many times [habe]That it is not suitable for talking about sensitive issues such as sexual violence – a topic that will inevitably appear in a cultural broadcast. ”
At first, the ARD still held on to its host decision before finally pulling back under the growing public pressure. Mischke himself showed himself outraged – he drew attention to possible controversy at an early stage, he emphasized in an interview with the “ZEIT”: “I pointed out which problem could be associated with it. It was not interested in anyone.”
Fear sits deeply, he stands in the book anyway
In Kurt Krömers Podcast, Thilo Mischke now came to speak how much he had added to the debate about his person. He explained in concrete terms: “You don’t dare to go on the street. You are afraid of everything.” And he continued: “I sit very rickety in front of you.” When the shitstorm started, he was supposedly hardly anything because: “You are as motionless as a huge black wave that collapses above you.”
Nevertheless, he did not want to “make himself the victim of this shit storm”. And so he referred to the book, which was so often the subject of discussions about his person – “in 80 women around the world”. In his opinion, the title of the work was not well chosen. Mischke: “I never wanted to, I fought against it, but never made it.” Nevertheless, he wanted to emphasize: “Singing straight for this book is important to me.” Although he did not expect the “force” of reporting, “from colleagues who know me”.
“We have to discuss sexism”
In the podcast sequence with Kurt Krömer, Mischke continued to make it clear that as a society, one has a need for speech in any case: “We have to discuss sexism, discuss the structures. The journalist who I was back then is a product of it.” However, he assumed “that the last 15 years were enough to show: ‘I’m not.'”