Martin Sonneborn is a German satirist

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

. He was editor-in-chief of the humorist magazine Titanic

Titanic (magazine)

Titanic is a German monthly satirical magazine based in Frankfurt. It has a circulation of approximately 100,000.- History :Titanic was founded in 1979 by former contributors and editors of Pardon, a satirical monthly, which the group had left after conflicts with its publisher...

from 2000 to October 2005. Since November 2006 he has worked for Spiegel Online

Spiegel Online

Spiegel Online , the online version of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, is one the most visited news websites written in the German language.- Company :...

.

He is the founder and leader of the satirical political party Die PARTEI

Die PARTEI

Die PARTEI is a satirical political party in Germany founded in 2004 by editors of the German satirical magazine Titanic...

, one of whose aims is to rebuild The Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 in Germany.

He became famous for his efforts in 2000 to bring the 2006 FIFA World Cup

2006 FIFA World Cup

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...

 to Germany by offering FIFA officials a small gift for their vote in favor of Germany. He documented this episode in a book, Ich tat es für mein Land. Wie TITANIC einmal die Fußball-WM 2006 nach Deutschland holte: Protokoll einer erfolgreichen Bestechung. (ISBN 3-936261-37-7). See Titanic (magazine)#2006 FIFA World Cup bribery affair.

In November 2007 he was heavily criticised by UK media for a "Find Maddie Ad" in the Titanic magazine, a satirical reference to the media coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Madeleine McCann disappeared on the evening of Thursday, 3 May 2007. She was on holiday with her parents and twin siblings in the Algarve region of Portugal. The British girl went missing from an apartment, in the central area of the resort of Praia da Luz, a few days before her fourth...

.

In late 2009, he was criticized in a Chinese newspaper for "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" in a broadcast about the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair

Frankfurt Book Fair

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. As to the number of visitors, the Turin Book Fair attracts about as many visitors, viz. some 300,000....

 on ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

's satirical

Humour

Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...

late-night program "Die heute-Show".