Günter Bannas

Günter Bannas (8 May 1952 – 24 July 2026) was a German journalist, who served for a long time as head of the capital parliamentary studio of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

Life and career Bannas was born in Kassel on 8 May 1952 He studied history for four semesters and then economy, finances, political sciences and social psychology. He graduated with the diploma from the University of Cologne in 1979.

On 20 March 2018, Bannas retired in a ceremony with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Horst Seehofer (CSU), several ministers and other politicians and journalists.

Bannas was married to , a painter from Berlin. He died after a long illness in Berlin, on 24 July 2026, at the age of 74. Bannas left his collection of notes about political topics to the Heinrich Böll Foundation. In 2014 Bannas received the Ernst Dieter Lueg Award. In 2018 Bannas was honoured for his life's work with the Theodor Wolff Prize.

Publications Der Vertrag zur deutschen Einheit. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig / Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden und Berlin 1990. Machtverschiebung: Wie die Berliner Republik unsere Politik verändert hat. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019.