Edgar Roeder

Edgar Röder (born February 25, 1936 in Saubach ) is a former German diplomat . He was the GDR's ambassador in Algeria and Tunisia .

Life

Röder, who came from the simplest of backgrounds, began learning English privately with his math teacher when he was 12 years old as a village schoolboy in Saubach. After finishing school and completing a commercial apprenticeship, he started working in retail. Between 1955 and 1958 Röder served with the barracked people's police and with the NVA (air force). From 1958 to 1960 he worked as a district dispatcher at the council of the Nebra district . Röder was a member of the SED .

In September 1960 Röder began studying at the Institute for International Relations , specializing in foreign policy, in Potsdam-Babelsberg . From 1964 he was an employee in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the GDR (MfAA). He became a country officer in the 4th Non-European Department ( Africa ) and initially dealt with Tanganyika and Zanzibar . From 1968 to 1970 he was sent to Mali as deputy head of the GDR's economic and trade mission . From 1971 to 1973 he was deputy head of the 4th non-European department (Africa) in the MfAA. From 1974 to 1978 he headed the East and Central Africa department. From 1979 to 1983, Röder was the GDR's ambassador in Algiers . Between 1984 and 1989 he headed the North and West Africa Department. In May 1990 he was appointed ambassador of the GDR to Tunisia . Röder was the last ambassador to be appointed in the GDR and sent abroad. In view of the imminent collapse of his state, he renounced an accreditation with the head of state in Tunis , "a curiosity in the history of diplomacy".

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991, Röder took part in a business training course for academics and completed a course in corporate management. He became divisional manager at a German subsidiary of the Italian Olivetti group, regional manager at the British company Thomas Cook and finally from 1997 to 2003 manager and general representative in the management of American Express in Frankfurt am Main .

Awards

• Patriotic Order of Merit in Bronze (1976)

Fonts

• "Mr. Ambassador, you still have one day ...". Memories and thoughts of a GDR diplomat . ( Writings on international politics , issue 30 of the “Blue Series”). Association for International Politics and International Law, Berlin 2010.

literature

• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990 . Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla . KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 , p. 725.
• Siegfried Bock , Ingrid Muth , Hermann Schwiesau: The GDR foreign policy, an overview. Data, facts, people (III) . LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10559-2 , p. 345.

Web links

• "Mr. Ambassador, you still have one day ..." . Book presentation and reviews on the website of the Association for International Politics and International Law.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see foreword by Otto Pfeiffer to "Mr. Ambassador, you still have one day ...".