MEIN BERLIN - MEIN LEBEN

In his book, Zelle recounts professional and personal stories, funny and sad, unvarnished and in his own casual, friendly tone: from the 1970s and 1980s in West Berlin, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the transformation of Berlin up to the present day.


Ulli Zelle was born on 19 June 1952 in Lower Saxony and worked as a reporter for rbb for many decades. Today, he is a presenter, author and singer (‘Ulli & Die Grauen Zellen’) and has lived in Berlin for many decades.

Influenced by his parents' social democratic views, he trained as an advertising executive in Hanover and then began studying social and economic communication at the Berlin University of the Arts, graduating with a degree. He then completed a second degree in journalism at the Free University of Berlin.During his studies, Zelle lived in Berlin-Kreuzberg and worked as a freelancer for various agencies and newspapers. He worked as a reporter for SFB radio from 1984 and for television from 1985.

In 1993, he hosted a talk show for VOX. From 1994, Zelle presented the programme Berlin life on SFB and also worked on other programmes. Zelle made the film programmes Kulturreport and Bilderbuch Deutschland for ARD, and until spring 2025 he worked for Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) as a reporter, among other things, and until 2019 he presented the programme Heimatjournal alternately with a colleague.

Zelle is the singer in the band Ulli & Die Grauen Zellen, which specialises in rock music. Since 2016, he has had his own talk show, Ullis Nachtcafé, at the Schloßpark Theater in Berlin. In 2025, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the City of Berlin.