After graduating from high school in 1978 at the Marianum Gymnasium in Warburg, he studied law and political science at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg.

[7] In February 1987, he received his doctorate under Dieter Oberndörfer at the University of Freiburg with a dissertation on continuity and change of American and Soviet politics in Near and Middle East 1967 to 1980.

[8] In October 1986, Ulfkotte became a member of the political editorial board of FAZ, where he belonged to the foreign policy department until 2003 and dealt with Africa, the Arab states and the United Nations.

[9] He said that he lived mainly in Islamic countries between 1986 and 1998 (including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan) and travelled to over sixty states.

[13] Ulfkotte was a lecturer in security management in the field of business administration at Leuphana University of Lüneburg from 1999 to 2007 and taught competition observation in the United States.

[17] Ulfkotte was a co-founder of the anti-Islamic association Pax Europa in 2006,[18] which joined Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), as part of the counter-jihad movement.

[21] Also in June 2007, Ulfkotte signed the anti-Islam organisation Federal Association of Citizens' Movements (BDB)'s "Wertheimer Appell" against their supposed "creeping Islamisation" of Germany.

[13][18] On 22 December 2014, Ulfkotte appeared as an "official" speaker at the Bogida demonstration controlled by Pro NRW, where he made "16 arguments" in support of Pegida.

[30] In 2014, Ulfkotte's book Gekaufte Journalisten (English: Bought Journalists: How Politicians, Intelligence Agencies and High Finance Control Germany’s Mass Media) was published.

According to Ulfkotte, the CIA and German intelligence (BND) bribe journalists in Germany to write pro-NATO propaganda articles, and it is well understood that one may lose their media job if they fail to comply with the pro-Western agenda.