Susanne Koelbl was born in Munich in 1965 as the daughter of the photographer and documentary filmmaker Herlinde Koelbl. After graduating from the Bertolt-Brecht-Gymnasium (BBG) in Munich-Pasing, Koelbl studied languages at the Université Catholique de l'Ouest (UCO) in Angers in France and politics and history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). Koelbl did her journalistic training in Munich. She volunteered at the evening newspaper, for which she then worked as an editor and then went to SZ-Magazin as an author and co-founder.
In April 2008 it became known that the Federal Intelligence Service was monitoring Afghan Trade and Industry Minister Amin Farhang in 2006 and had also recorded e-mails from Koelbl.[2][3]
On a Knight Wallace Fellowship, she studied at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States of America.[4] During a sabbatical, she worked on a study on Syria in 2011/12 and gave guest lectures on the war in Afghanistan. Koelbl is also a fellow of the German-French Youth Office (DFJW) and a fellow of the German-Israeli Young Leaders Exchange of the Bertelsmann Foundation. In 2011, she spent three months in Beijing, China, as the China-Germany media ambassador for the Robert Bosch Foundation.
She was also a lecturer in the journalism department at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Leipzig.[5]
Awards
In 2014 she won the Liberty Award for her reports on the civil war in Syria and North Korea.[6]
Writings
Susanne Koelbl, Olaf Ihlau : War in the Hindu Kush: People and Powers in Afghanistan. Random House, Pantheon Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN978-3-570-55075-5.
Susanne Koelbl, Olaf Ihlau: Beloved, dark country. People and powers in Afghanistan. Siedler Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN978-3-88680-878-6.
Susanne Koelbl: 12 weeks in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia between dictatorship and new beginnings. Deutsche-Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2019, ISBN978-3-421-04786-1.
Behind the Kingdom's Veil: Inside the New Saudi Arabia Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
^Severin Weiland (2008-04-25). "Der Herr der Spione darf bleiben". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 2012-09-25. Der BND hatte 2006 den afghanischen Handels- und Industrieminister Amin Farhang überwacht und dabei auch E-Mails der Reporterin mitgeschnitten. Der BND-Präsident Uhrlau erfuhr davon nach Regierungsangaben erst ein Jahr später, Ende 2007.