Nina Ruge

About Nina Ruge

Nina Ruge is one of the most well-known personalities in German television. Whether it’s politics, business, or lifestyle, the presenter and journalist is at home in various fields and captivates with seriousness and sensitivity.

Nina Ruge initially pursued a classical career: she became a teacher of German and biology at a high school in Wolfsburg.

In 1987, she left this profession – without resentment, but with a lot of “alternative energy” – she had started producing radio contributions for NDR Braunschweig alongside her teaching job and discovered a new passion: feature films.

She moved to Berlin and worked her way up from wardrobe assistant to script girl to assistant director in numerous film and television productions. On days without filming, she was active as an editorial assistant at SFB in the women’s and family program.

In 1988, RIAS launched its TV program in Berlin – Nina Ruge was there from the beginning – as an editor/author of film contributions and as the presenter of the news magazine “Abendjournal”, later of the “RIAS tv breakfast television” – the first journalistic morning program in Germany.

In 1989, she was discovered by ZDF and joined as a co-presenter on the ZDF “heute journal”.

At the same time, she continued to present on “RIAS-tv breakfast television” – as well as on 3sat the talk show “Sonntagsshow”, later the trend magazine “pep”, the 3sat “NewsQuiz”, and regularly the 3sat “Tagesgespräche” – ten-minute interviews on the political top topics of the day.

When RIAS was “dismantled” following German reunification, Nina Ruge began presenting the infotainment show of the successor channel “Deutsche Welle tv” – “Boulevard Deutschland” – as well as the political magazine “Standpunkte”. In early 1994, Nina Ruge took over the presentation of the main news program “Deutsche Welle-tv-journal”. In 1994, the animal magazine “tele zoo” was added at ZDF.

When ZDF launched the daily news magazine “heute Nacht” – the personalized show with Nina Ruge – she ended her engagement with Deutsche Welle.

However, in 1996, the Sunday political talk show “19zehn” at 3sat was added – alternating with Helmut Markwort and Gerd Ruge.

In 1997, everything changed again: Nina Ruge launched the daily ZDF entertainment journal “Leute heute” in Munich. In addition, she continued to present the talk show “19zehn” and in 1998 at 3sat, the classical magazine CLASSIC CUTS.

In 2007, Nina Ruge ended her presenting role on “Leute heute” and said goodbye after 10 years.

Nowadays, she presents the talk show “Unter4Augen” on Friday evenings on Bayerisches Fernsehen (alternating with Sabine Sauer), and continues to lead the talk show “Forum Manager” on Phoenix, a one-hour discussion program with a top manager from large German companies.

Furthermore, she regularly writes columns (currently for the online portal “One’s Prime”) and has written or published 19 books to date. Her latest book was published in September 2012 titled: “What does my dog feel – what does my dog think?”.