Ferdinand Thun (diplomat)

Ferdinand Thun-Hohenstein , also Ferdinand Judas Thaddäus Graf von Thun und Hohenstein , (born August 26, 1921 in Tetschen , Czechoslovakia ) is a former German diplomat . Before 1989 he was the only ambassador of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) who belonged to a bloc party ( NDPD ) and not to the SED .

Life

Ferdinand Thun was born as the son of Prince Franz Anton von Thun and Hohenstein and his wife Franziska. Princess von Lobkowitz (daughter of Ferdinand von Lobkowitz ) was born. The grandmother Marie Pia von Thun and Hohenstein geb. Chotek von Chotkow was the daughter of Count Boguslaw Chotek von Chotkow and the sister of Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa , the morganatic wife of the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este .

He passed his Abitur in 1940 and was drafted into the Wehrmacht that same year . In 1943 he was taken as a lieutenant in Soviet captivity and attended an anti-fascist school run by the National Committee for Free Germany (NKFD) . In 1944 he joined the Association of German Officers .

In December 1948 he was released into the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. During the Cold War, his work in the Moscow organizations made it advisable to stay there and not go to West Germany or - like many Sudeten Germans - to Austria . In 1949 he became a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany and its main committee. He studied at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and at the German Administration Academy . In 1954 he graduated as a political scientist.

From 1949 to 1987 he held various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA) of the German Democratic Republic. From 1949 to 1956 he was Chief of Protocol , from 1956 to 1961 and from 1969 to 1973 Counselor in the Soviet Union , from 1962 to 1968 Head of the International Organizations Department at the MfAA, from April 1973 to 1975 Ambassador to Iran and second accredited to Afghanistan . From 1976 to 1982 he worked as a research assistant in the UNO department of the MfAA, where he was responsible for arms control and disarmament. From 1976 to 1978 he was head of the GDR delegation in the " Nuclear Suppliers Group ", 1980 representative of the GDR in the Political Committee of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons , 1979 and 1980 head of the GDR delegation to the UN conferences on the restriction of the use of special conventional weapons and from 1980 to 1981 member of a working group at the UN Secretary General on questions of disarmament. From 1966 to 1990 he was a member of the Presidium of the League for the United Nations in the GDR. From February 1982 to 1987 he was permanent delegate of the German Democratic Republic to UNESCO in Paris.

Ferdinand Thun was a member of the NDPD until 1990 .

Private

After his return from Soviet captivity, he gave up his title of nobility in 1949 and married the literary scholar Nyota Kirchner in Leipzig , with whom he has three children. Today he lives in Berlin as a pensioner.

Awards

• 1970 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• 1981 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1985 Order of the Star of Friendship of Nations in silver

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Thun, Ferdinand . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Siegfried Bock, Ingrid Muth, Hermann Schwiesau: The GDR foreign policy, an overview. Data, facts, people (III) . LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, Berlin 2010, pp. 358f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jan Eik, Klaus Behling: 111 questions to the GDR: Who, why, why, why ?, Edition Berolina, 2013 [1]
2. ^ Nobility in the GDR: Gentlemen's Striders on a Soviet Red Carpet , one day , October 15, 2007
3. ^ Genealogical page on the parents of their children
4. ↑ Congratulations on your 65th birthday in National-Zeitung of August 26, 1986