Alexander Smoltczyk was born in Berlin in 1958 and graduated from the Goldberg-Gymnasium in Sindelfingen in 1978. After completing his alternative civilian service with the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace in France, he studied economics, political science, and agricultural economics in Berlin and Montpellier as a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation (Diploma, Licence ès Sc. Eco.).
Smoltczyk has written, among others, for taz, Wochenpost, merian, GEO, and mare. From 1997 onwards, he worked as a reporter for DER SPIEGEL. As a correspondent, Smoltczyk lived in Paris, Rome, Abu Dhabi, and Lisbon. He now works as a freelance writer for DER SPIEGEL.
Smoltczyk has received the Henri Nannen Award several times, as well as the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize, the Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism, and the Robert Geisendörfer Prize.