Daniel Funke (born 23 July 1981)[1] is a German journalist. Since 2019 he has been the head of the Berlin office and lobbyist at BurdaVerlag, a division of German media company Hubert Burda Media.[2]
From 2002 to 2009, he studied German studies ("Germanistik") and history at Humboldt-Universität Berlin. Between 2004 and 2007, he also worked at the private TV channel Sat. 1 and the magazine Blitz ("Flash"). In 2007, he became an editor at Bunte, a German people magazine, and in 2012, the head of its Berlin office.
Funke has been married to German politician and former federal secretary of health Jens Spahn (CDU) since 2017.[3]
Funke caused controversy with a story he wrote for Bunte magazine about the then-new US ambassador Richard Grenell, which presented Grenell in a very positive light. The story didn't reveal that Funke and Spahn were friends with Grenell and his partner Matt Lashey and could therefore be seen as a political favour to ease Grenell's entry into German politics.[4]
Funke again caused controversy in March 2021 when it was revealed that his employer had sold 570,000 FFP 2 masks without a formal bidding process conducted by the Federal Ministry of Health, which was led by his husband, Jens Spahn.[5]