János Zolcer

János Zolcer is a journalist, television producer and content developer with decades of experience at global networks including CNN, BBC and ZDF. A German citizen born in Czechoslovakia, he now lives in Hungary.

He is known for his work on Mikhail Gorbachev, having produced a documentary series featuring the former Soviet leader and brought together world leaders such as Helmut Kohl and Shimon Peres for dialogue. He chronicles these experiences in his book Secrets of Gorbachev.

The Gorbachev work began with a meeting in Vienna in 2000 and became a documentary series in which the former Soviet president interviewed the people he had negotiated the end of the Cold War with, among them George H. W. Bush, Helmut Kohl, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Shimon Peres.

The friendship lasted more than two decades, and Gorbachev’s Secrets, published on his ninetieth birthday, is Zolcer’s account of the private conversations behind it. He came to it from three decades of broadcast production, which is a rare vantage point on how a state comes apart without a war.