Kristin Helberg
Kristin Helberg was born in Heilbronn, Germany. She studied political science and journalism in Hamburg and Barcelona, before working as a radio journalist at Norddeutscher Rundfunk, in Hamburg, from 1995 to 2001. In that year, Helberg moved to Damascus, Syria, where she was the only accredited Western reporter for several years; she reported for radio programmes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as for television and print media, before returning to Germany in 2008. Helberg is the author of two German-language books on Syria and Syrians.