“Nobody hands you access to this region — you earn it by showing up”
Daniel GerlachEditor-in-chief, zenith·May 2026
Daniel Gerlach founded zenith as a student in Hamburg and turned it into the German-speaking world's magazine of record on the Middle East. A conversation about paths that begin without a plan.
Svenja
You started zenith while you were still a student. Was that ambition, or impatience?
Daniel Gerlach
Probably impatience that aged into ambition. None of us had a plan — we had a sense that the coverage we wanted to read didn't exist, and that waiting for permission was a way of never starting.
Svenja
What should someone study who wants to understand the region — the language or the politics?
Daniel Gerlach
The language, always. Politics you can read up on; trust you cannot. Arabic opened doors that no press card ever would.
Svenja
What do you tell students who ask how to begin?
Daniel Gerlach
Go there. Not as a tourist of crises, but with a task — a magazine, a research question, a job. The region rewards people who keep coming back.
“Waiting for permission is a way of never starting.”
“Nobody hands you access to this region — you earn it by showing up” — svenjarene.team