Cornelius Pollmer was born in Dresden in 1984. He studied economics, graduated from the German School of Journalism and is a former fellow of the International Journalism Programme. Since 2025, he has been head of the Leipzig office of ZEIT and the ZEIT im Osten department. Prior to that, he worked for many years for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, most recently in its arts and culture section.
He has published two books on eastern Germany – the volume "Randland" (Edge-land) with texts from the new federal states and "Heut ist irgendwie ein komischer Tag" (Today is somehow a strange day), a reportage on the Mark Brandenburg. Cornelius Pollmer ran the podcast "Notizen aus der Provinz" (Notes from the Province) with the writer Lukas Rietzschel. He regularly appears on the Literarisches Quartett (Literary Quartet) and moderates stage discussions, mainly on the topics of politics, science, economics and culture. In his texts, he repeatedly grapples with his home state of Saxony and the city of Dresden in particular.