Aust was born in Stade, Lower Saxony as son of the farmer Reinhard Aust and his wife Ilse, born Hartig. Together with four siblings he grew up on a small dairy farm which his family ran until the early 1960s. His father emigrated to America at the age of 18 and returned to Germany in the summer of 1939. His grandfather was a merchant and shipowner. Aust graduated from high school at the Athenaeum in Stade and gained his first journalistic experience working for the localschool newspaper "Wir", through which he also got to know the journalist Henryk M. Broder. Aust dropped out of business studies after a few weeks.
Career
Early career
Via Wolfgang Röhl, Klaus Rainer Röhl's younger brother, whom he met at the school newspaper, Aust came to the magazine konkret after graduating from high school, where he was initially in charge of the magazines layout. From 1966 to 1969 Aust then worked as an editor for the magazine concrete and later for the :de:St. Pauli-Nachrichten|St. Pauli-Nachrichten. In 1969, Aust traveled to the United States for half a year. From 1970 he worked for the Norddeutscher Rundfunk. Since 2014, he is the publisher of the conservative leading Die Welt newspaper. Until December 2016, he was also the paper's editor. He was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazineDer Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008. Two of Aust's books have been made into films: Der Pirat 1997 by and Der Baader Meinhof Komplex 2008 by Uli Edel.
Books
Kennwort 100 Blumen – Verwicklung des Verfassungsschutzes in den Mordfall Ulrich Schmücker. Konkret Literatur Verlag, Hamburg 1980.
Hausbesetzer: Wofür sie kämpfen, wie sie leben und wie sie leben wollen. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1981.
Brokdorf: Symbol einer politischen Wende. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1981.
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1985.
Werner Mauss – ein deutscher Agent. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1988.
Der Pirat: Die Drogenkarriere des Jan C.. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1990.
Die Flucht: Über die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten. Spiegel-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2002.
Der Lockvogel: Die tödliche Geschichte eines V-Mannes zwischen Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismus. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2002.
11. September. Geschichte eines Terrorangriffs. DVA, Stuttgart 2002.
Irak: Geschichte eines modernen Krieges. Spiegel-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2003.
Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit: Der lange Schatten des Dritten Reichs. DVA, München 2004.
Der Fall Deutschland: Abstieg eines Superstars. Piper, München 2005.
Wettlauf um die Welt: Die Globalisierung und wir. Piper, München 2007.
