Bernd Erbel

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Bernd Erbel (born December 11, 1947 in Simmern / Hunsrück ) is a retired German diplomat . From 2009 to 2013 he was Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Iran .

Professional career

Bernd Erbel attended high school in Karlsruhe and graduated from high school. He then studied law and oriental studies in Munich . At the age of 16 he traveled to the Arab countries. First he went to Egypt and learned the Arabic language . He passed his state examination in law and joined the Foreign Service on April 1, 1975 .

From 1977 Erbel worked as a consultant at the embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut . At that time, the country was raging civil war . He later worked as a permanent representative at the embassies in Sanaa , Riyadh and from 1995 to 1999 in Cairo . In the meantime he was a consultant in the Mediterranean section of the German Foreign Office in the Federal City of Bonn . In 1999 he took over the management of the organization department in the Foreign Office and in October 2001 he took over the management of the IT team . In this role, he managed the project to fully network all German diplomatic missions abroad .

From July 2004 to August 2006, Bernd Erbel worked as ambassador to Iraq . During the Iraq war in 2003 he was sent to Kuwait for in-depth analysis of the situation on the ground . As a mediator and diplomat, he played a key role in the release of Susanne Osthoff as well as René Bräunlich and Thomas Nitzschke .

In August 2006, he succeeded Martin Kobler , who became ambassador in Baghdad, the post of ambassador in Cairo until the summer of 2009. While working in Egypt , Erbel managed to get the United Buddy Bears exhibition to unite people before it traveled on to Jerusalem. on the bank of the Nile on the island of Gezira , for 6 weeks. The official opening was made by Egypt's First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak , the Governor of Cairo , Abdel Azim Wazir , and Erbel.

From October 2009 Erbel was the German ambassador to Tehran (Iran), in July 2013 Michael Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg took over the post.

activities

Since his retirement in 2013, Erbel has been program director for the countries of the Near and Middle East as part of the international diplomatic training of the Federal Foreign Office, and since 2014 has also been a lawyer in an advisory capacity at the law firm Gauweiler und Bub.

In August 2019 it became known that Erbel would not take over the management of the Iran payment company Instex as planned . Erbel gave “personal reasons” as the reason for not showing up. According to media reports, Erbel had previously conducted two interviews with Ken Jebsen on KenFM and is said to have represented positions critical of Israel. He said, among other things, that Israel is "more than ever a foreign body in the region".

Memberships and functions

  • Member of the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP),
  • in the German-Arab Society DAG (member of the board of trustees) and in
  • Near and Middle East Association V. (NUMOV) (member of the advisory board).

Private

While working in Lebanon, Erbel met his current wife May, with whom he has two sons and a daughter. In addition to German, he speaks English, French, Arabic and Persian.

Audio contributions

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Claude Robert Ellner German ambassador to Baghdad (Iraq)
2004–2006 		Martin Kobler
predecessor Office successor
Herbert Honsowitz German Ambassador to Tehran (Iran)
2009–2013 		Michael Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United Buddy Bears in Cairo 2007
  2. ^ Eva Herlitz and Klaus Herlitz : United Buddy Bears - The Art of Tolerance , 2009, pages 32 and 33, ISBN 978-3-00-029417-4 .
  3. ↑ team. In: Website of the International Diplomatic Training of the Federal Foreign Office. Retrieved January 27, 2020 .
  4. ^ Mathias Brüggmann: The man who redistributes the flow of money between Europe and Iran. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Designated head of the Iran Society withdraws , Jüdische Allgemeine , August 9, 2019
  6. ↑ Matthias Gebauer, Christoph Schult: Circumventing US sanctions: German diplomat Bock is to head the Institute for Iran Trade . In: Spiegel Online . September 5, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed September 5, 2019]).
  7. ↑ Website: Bub, Gauweiler & Partner ( Memento from June 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Erbel, Bernd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Simmern / Hunsrück