For four years, Ali Aslan worked for the German Islam Conference on assignment from the then German interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble. The host is an interesting guest on "Talking Germany".
Ali Aslan was born in Turkey in 1972. As a young man growing up in rural Schleswig-Holstein, he dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player. And he actually did make it onto the youth team of Hamburg's second-division St. Pauli soccer club. But in the end, he didn't make the grade, as he admits with self-effacing honesty. His parents were not so very torn up over it. They were a family of modest means from Hatay Province on the Turkish-Syrian border who improved their lot through education. His father was a doctor and his mother a lawyer. They wanted a university education for their son, as well - though not necessarily in Germany. So Ali Aslan went to the U.S.A. to study, gaining his first professional experience there with CNN and ABC News. Ali Aslan returned to Germany in 2006 to report on the FIFA World Cup soccer championship. He has lived and worked in Berlin ever since.