Christoph von Marschall (born in 1959) is a German journalist working as the editor and as a United States correspondent in Washington D.C. for the daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel

Der Tagesspiegel

Der Tagesspiegel is a classical liberal German daily newspaper...

. Before that, he was the director of the commentary section.

Biography

Christoph von Marschall was born in 1959 in Freiburg im Breisgau

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

. From there, he studied East European history and political science in Freiburg, Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

, and Cracow, and earned his Ph.D. in Eastern European history from Freiburg University in 1988. Soon afterwards, he was a correspondent in Hungary until 1991 for the Süddeutsche Zeitung

Süddeutsche Zeitung

The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...

. There, he worked for Deutschlandfunk and the magazine Cicero. In 1999, von Marschall was awarded a Kellen Fellowship that enabled him to spend one month each working at The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

and The Wisconsin State Journal.
In 2002, von Marschall received the German-American Commentary Award of the Foreign Office for a commentary post related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In 2007, von Marschall wrote a book about the presidential candidate Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, Barack Obama - Der schwarze Kennedy

Barack Obama - Der schwarze Kennedy

Barack Obama – Der schwarze Kennedy is a best-selling German-language biography of President of the United States Barack Obama by journalist Christoph von Marschall. The book was written by von Marschall while he spent much of 2007 travelling with Obama's presidential campaign as a reporter for...

. The literal translation of its German title is "Barack Obama. The Black Kennedy". His book was a best seller in Germany, where other commentators had also compared Obama with John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

.

In 2007 and 2008 von Marschall covered the Obama campaign for Der Tagesspiegel. He was often interviewed in the American press about Obama's popularity in Europe. Towards the end of the campaign he wrote an op-ed column in the Washington Post in which he complained about the lack of access Obama had granted to foreign journalists.