Departures of note

Heiko Gebhardt was born on 6 June 1942 in Bad Polzin, West Pomerania. After completing a journalism traineeship with the Hannoversche Presse, he gained attention with a report that led Henri Nannen, the founder and chief editor of Stern, to recruit him as a reporter. He became known for his investigative pieces, including a 1966 report on a self‑inflicted injury case and a 1967 exposé on Berlin police chief Karl‑Heinz Kurras. During the 1970s he worked for the newly founded ZEIT magazine before returning to Stern, where he covered war, crisis and crime reporting. In the 1990s he served as Stern's correspondent in Budapest and later as head of the politics department. From 1997 to 2000 he helped design the 50‑year anniversary supplement of the magazine. In the 2000s Gebhardt moved to the Swiss media group Ringier, where he helped launch the magazine Sie+Er for SonntagsBlick and advised publisher Michael Ringier. He also contributed to the founding of the magazine Cicero and later created regional publications such as Landluft. He lived in the Wendland region and was the father of four children. Gebhardt passed away in 2026, as reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung, marking the end of a distinguished career in German journalism.