Attila Hildmann

Life

Hildmann is of Turkish ancestry and was raised by German adoptive parents. He lives in Berlin, where he studied for an advanced degree in physics at the Free University.

Hildmann first turned to vegetarianism after witnessing his adoptive father drop dead of a heart attack while on a ski trip in 2000. He attributed his father's untimely death to excessive meat consumption, with consequent high cholesterol, and he himself suffered from obesity as a young man. He renounced meat and fish products, and began to exercise regularly, dropping 35 kilos. Over time, he renounced almost all animal products (with exceptions, e.g. leather) and became primarily vegan.

In 2009, Hildmann wrote his first vegan cookbook. In 2012, his Vegan for Fun was named cookbook of the year by the Vegetarierbund Deutschland, the German branch of the International Vegetarian Union.

Hildmann appears in YouTube videos and has been featured in numerous television programs and talk shows, including Maischberger, TV total, the ZDF's Volle Kanne, the SWR's Nachtcafé, and the WDR's daheim + unterwegs. In March 2016, he was a contestant in the TV show Let's Dance.

In 2015, he commented on the European migrant crisis, stating: "Integration in Germany is a sensitive issue because of the German past, resulting in a current self-mutilation of German values and culture." This remark was criticized on a BR public radio broadcast as a "symbiosis of right-wing extremism with boundless love for animals."

Works