Dr Norbert Himmler has been appointed the new Director General of German public service television broadcaster ZDF. He takes up the post on 16 March.

He succeeds Dr Thomas Bellut, who led the broadcaster for the past 10 years.

Dr Himmler joined ZDF as a freelancer in the news department in 1997. In 1999 he became an editor and reporter with ZDF domestic bureau in Rhineland-Palatinate.

After rising through the ranks in news and programming, he became Programme Director of ZDF in April 2012, a position he held until being appointed Director General.

Since 2017, he has also been Chairman of the Management Board of 3sat, a free-to-air German-language public service television channel.

Born in Mainz, Dr Himmler holds a doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich at Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science, Department of International Politics.