Background
He grew up in Geiselsberg, a village that lies 1,344 metres above sea level in the central Alps. He has stated that his family was poor, and that his father died at an early age, leaving his mother to care for 3 children.
He grew up in Geiselsberg, a village that lies 1,344 metres above sea level in the central Alps. He has stated that his family was poor, and that his father died at an early age, leaving his mother to care for 3 children.
He finished high school in Bruneck and completed military service as a radio operator in the alpine division of the Italian army before working at the radio station Radio Holiday.
As a native of South Tyrol, he has Italian citizenship. His good school grades earned him a scholarship to the monastery of Neustift, where he went to Brixen secondary school. In 1992 he graduated from the Bayerische Akademie für Werbung und Marketing in Munich with a degree in Business Communications.
In 1992 he started a two year trainee program at Radio Hamburg in Hamburg.
In 1995 he became the news announcer at the regional television station RTL North and in 1997 started as presenter of a regional evening news show in Schleswig-Holstein. Since 2008 he has hosted the weekly cooking show Lanz kocht!.
Since October 2009 he has hosted the talkshow Markus Lanz three evenings a week. Between October 2012 and 2014 he presented the monthly German television show Wetten, dass.? as successor to Thomas Gottschalk.
Private He has a son (born 2000) from a previous relationship with television presenter Birgit Schrowange.
In July 2011 Lanz married Angela Gessmann.
Lanz is a member of the German speaking majority in the Italian province of South Tyrol.