Sophia Maier

Sophia Maier (born on 18 August 1987 Munich ) is a German war correspondent , investigative journalist and author .

She won the Silver Media Lioness Award from the Austrian Women Journalists' Congress for Women, Peter Scholl-Latour Prize of the Ulrich Wickert Foundation, and Siebenpfeiffer Prize

 Career 
Maier completed her master's degree in political science and German studies at the University of Regensburg and subsequently worked for Huffpost Germany , where she headed the business section, among other things.

Sophia Maier has worked as a journalist since 2016, including for the TV formats #WHY and stern TV on RTL , where she was also a special correspondent for RTL News from July 2024 to March 2025.

She gained prominence through her reports from European refugee camps, which were featured on the television program stern TV and by other media outlets.  In 2016, she managed to report undercover from the Idomeni refugee camp on the Greek-Macedonian border during its evacuation. In December 2018, she infiltrated the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos to report on the abuses there.  In March 2020, she went undercover at the Turkish-Greek border and documented the violence there.  After the Taliban's renewed takeover of power in Afghanistan , Maier was one of the Western journalists who reported from the ground.

Maier also reported on the riots in Chemnitz in September 2018. She witnessed several attacks on journalists at the scene. When media outlets subsequently reported on press and freedom of expression in Germany, she repeatedly shared her assessment of the riots.  Since then, Maier has regularly reported on demonstrations in Germany, focusing on the AfD , the New Right , and right-wing extremism .

Maier's main focus is on migration and crisis and war zones in the Middle East . She has produced reports from Lebanon , Syria , and Afghanistan, among other places . Maier has also reported on the war in Ukraine on several occasions.  She is a regular guest on talk shows discussing current social and political issues.

In addition to her work as a reporter, Maier works as a photographer in crisis regions. Her photographs from countries such as Nepal,  and Greece have been presented in numerous exhibitions.

Maier regularly worked as a volunteer in crisis areas. She worked in Jordan for the German aid organization Help – Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe (Help – Help for Self-Help) . 

 Works 

 Heart of Barbed Wire: A war correspondent on lost humanity and the double standards of the West. Komplett Media, Munich 2025, . 

 References 

 Other websites 

 https://sophiamaier.com/