Burkhard Koester

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Burkhard Köster (* 1961 in Rheine ) is a German officer ( colonel ) and military historian who was head of the FüSK III 3 ( internal leadership ; military chaplaincy) department in the Federal Ministry of Defense until February 2017 and now serves at the BAIUDBw . Before that, he conducted research at the Military History Research Office (MGFA) on the history of the Bundeswehr and NATO .

Life

In 1980 Köster joined the Bundeswehr. In the following years until 1986 he completed the officer training and was u. a. used as platoon leader in a hunter company . During this time Köster was made a professional soldier. From 1986 he studied history and philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and worked at MGFA until 1994, which until 1994 was based in Freiburg im Breisgau . With Ulrich Kluge he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the military and railways in the Habsburg Monarchy 1825-1858 . In 1994 he took over a hunting company as a company commander. In 1996 he was transferred to the Army Officer School in Hanover and Dresden as a lecturer in military history . In 2000/2001 Köster completed the course for general staff / admiralty staff at the command and control academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg. From 2002 to 2008 he was a consultant at the Federal Ministry of Defense . In 2008 Koester was under the KFOR in used abroad . From 2009 he headed Research Area III (Bundeswehr and NATO History) at MGFA, then the Deployment department of the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr (ZMSBw) in Potsdam, which emerged from the MGFA . Köster is a lecturer at the University of Potsdam in the Military Studies course - military history / military sociology .

From 2013 to 2017 he headed the Department of Inner Leadership and Military Pastoral Care at the BMVg. In February 2017, Köster was withdrawn from the head of the department in the Federal Ministry of Defense because it allegedly did not adequately investigate reports on sexual-sadistic practices in medical training and bullying in the special operations training center in the Staufer barracks . For this reason, it was not the Köster originally intended for this post, who was instead transferred to the BAIUDBw , but Jörg Hillmann head of the ZMSBw. As a result, all the allegations turned out to be baseless.

Köster is a member of the Catholic Council of the Catholic Military Bishop for the German Federal Armed Forces and was elected to the General Assembly of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) in September 2015 .

Fonts (selection)

  • as editor: The Committee on European Security Issues - September 1954 to July 1955 . Series: the Bundestag Defense Committee and its predecessors. Droste Verlag , Düsseldorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-7700-1702-7 .
  • Prussia. Rise and fall of a great power , (together with Michael Epkenhans and Gerhard P. Groß ), Stuttgart 2011
  • For the love of seafaring! Vice Admiral Karl-Adolf Zenker , in: Military build-up generations of the Bundeswehr 1955 to 1970 - Selected biographies , ed. by Helmut R. Hammerich and Rudolf J. Schlaffer , Munich 2011, pp. 319–349
  • New ways in the traditional formation of the Bundeswehr: The "Citizen Soldier" of 1848/49 , in: Perspektiven der Militarygeschichte. Space, Violence and Representation in Historical Research and Education , ed. by Jörg Echternkamp , Wolfgang Schmidt and Thomas Vogel (= contributions to military history vol. 67), Munich 2010, pp. 269–277
  • Tradition in the Bundeswehr - Tradition of Reforms? , in: Reform - Reorganization - Transformation. On the change in the German armed forces from the Prussian army reformers to the transformation of the Bundeswehr , ed. by Karl-Heinz-Lutz, Martin Rink and Marcus von Salisch, Munich 2010, pp. 317-330
  • Military and Railway in the Habsburg Monarchy 1825–1858 , (= Military History Studies , published by the Military History Research Office, Vol. 37), Munich 1999

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Von der Leyen fires head of unit. In: tagesschau.de. February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Thorsten Jungholt: Bundeswehr: Von der Leyen takes tough action in Pfullendorf . In: THE WORLD . February 14, 2017 ( welt.de [accessed September 26, 2017]).
  3. ^ Christian Thiels: Scandal in Pfullendorf. The leadership has failed. Tagesschau.de , February 15, 2017, accessed on December 16, 2018 .
  4. ^ The consequences of Pfullendorf . In: Der Spiegel , issue 26/2017, Spiegel-Verlag, Hamburg 2014, ISSN  0038-7452
personal data
SURNAME Köster, Burkhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and military historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheine