Frank Elbe

Frank Elbe (2014)

Frank Elbe (born May 9, 1941 in Iserlohn ) is a German lawyer and ambassador retired . Elbe was the head of the office of Hans-Dietrich Genscher and head of the planning staff at the Foreign Office.

Life and professional career

Elbe grew up in the Iserlohn old town . After finishing secondary school , he did his Abitur at the Friedrich-Leopold-Woeste-Gymnasium in Hemer . From 1962 he studied law and political science in Innsbruck and Bonn .

From 1972 to 1976 he was consular officer in the embassy in Warsaw. From 1980 to 1983 he was Counselor for Political Affairs in London. From 1986 to 1987 he was deputy head of the department for nuclear disarmament issues in the Foreign Office.

Elbe was the office manager and speechwriter for Hans-Dietrich Genscher from 1987 to 1992 . Robert Zoellick described Elbe as a "key diplomat in the process of German reunification."

From 1991 to 1992 he was ambassador for special use and head of the management staff.

In 1992 he became head of the Foreign Office's planning team.

The diplomat was a long-standing German ambassador to Poland (1999–2003), India (1993–1997), Japan (1997–1999) and Switzerland (2003–2005).

Since 2006 he has been working as a lawyer with Kubicki & Schöler in Bonn.

After leaving the civil service, Elbe also took on a consulting role for VW in India. According to information from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, in 2018 Elbe sent an email to politicians and think tanks to promote the Nord Stream II project promoted by the Russian monopoly Gazprom .

Dismissed after criticism of Foreign Minister Fischer

In the summer of 2005 he criticized the administration of the then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and was put into temporary retirement by Federal President Horst Köhler at Fischer's request in accordance with Paragraph 36 of the Civil Service Act .

In a published letter, Elbe accused the minister of poor crisis management, a split in the Foreign Office, bureaucratic sloppiness and a lack of political sensitivity in the ministry leadership. In the memorial practice, he advocated a differentiated approach to the obituary of officials of the Foreign Office who had been members of the NSDAP. He rejects "moral rigorism".

The letter was published in the Bild newspaper. According to his own admission, Elbe had not given it to the newspaper. He could not rule out that he came from the Foreign Office. The publication happened before Fischer received the letter.

On the question of disloyalty, he said that the question shows “that criticism of the authorities is not yet part of our understanding of the state. An official, whether ambassador or registrar, can criticize his employer if this is done in the appropriate form. "

Fischer also interpreted Elbe's criticism in a party-political way, Elbe was a member of the FDP. He has been described as arrogant, haughty, presumptuous, and arrogant.

Disciplinary proceedings have not been initiated.

After the former ambassador in Madrid, Joachim Bitterlich , Elbe was the second high-ranking diplomat to be put into temporary retirement by Fischer.

Positions

In retrospect, Elbe noted a catastrophic development in 2016 that could not have been foreseen in the early 1990s. Elbe worries that Europe and NATO are turning away from the previous successful paradigm of foreign policy, which was determined by defining East and West as partners, looking for common answers to the challenges of the future, taking into account the security interests of everyone, and recognizing that that the security of one partner is inextricably linked with that of all others. He sees a serious political crisis and the danger of war in Europe: “We are abandoned by all good spirits. We have a situation in which threat and absurd, dangerous theater are close together. "

“Politicians were not paying attention and no longer really taking on their role as the political sovereign of NATO. The result is that Europe has slipped into a crisis that is in reality not a European one, but a power-political dispute between two major nuclear powers in order to expand their spheres of influence. Obama's view that Russia is only a 'regional power' must not be pushed through on the back of Europe. "

He thinks Americans love doing business with Europe. However, the European Union has also become a major competitor, much stronger than the Americans ever wished for.

The point between the USA and Russia is not about international law, Ukraine or Crimea, but about a power-political tussle to maintain old spheres of influence in Europe, and about a “violent domestic political dispute in the USA about the fundamental orientation of American policy Russia and Europe, in which the Europeans have at best the role of onlookers? "

Honors

• In 1997 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• Medal of Merit of the Polish Association of Victims of the Third Reich

Private

Elbe is married and lives in Bonn.

Web links

Private website

Talkshow Phoenix Round July 7, 2016

Publications

• with Richard Kiessler : A round table with sharp corners: the diplomatic path to German unity. Nomos 1993. ISBN 978-3-7890-3105-2
  • engl. A Round Table with Sharp Corners: The Diplomatic Path to German Unity. Nomos 1996. ISBN 978-3-7890-4211-9
• in: Meinrad Maria Grewenig (editor): 25 years of German reunification: photographs by Helmut R. Schulze. Das Wunderhorn, May 2014, ISBN 978-3-88423-476-1
• in: Hubert Thielicke (editor): Berlin and Moscow - what next? WeltTrends, 2016, ISBN 978-3-945878-26-2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ambassador Elbe is to be recalled . In: sueddeutsche.de . ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
2. ↑ Illuminated by Cornelia Merkel (text) and Josef Wronski (photo): Frank Elbe. Retrieved April 3, 2017 . 
3. ↑ List of speakers with legend from a conference in Switzerland  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Peter Sürken, Johannes Wamser, Mike Batra: India: a travel guide for the "business class" . local global, 2007, ISBN 978-3-9810156-9-0 ( google.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
5. ↑ The Kremlin's best friends faz.de , March 20, 2018.
6. ↑ Ambassador Elbe is to be recalled . In: sueddeutsche.de . ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
7. ↑ "Fischer wants to execute morality like an ax": - WELT. Retrieved April 3, 2017 . 
8. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Ex-Ambassador Elbe: "Fischer deeply injured many colleagues" - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Politics. Retrieved April 3, 2017 . 
9. ↑ FOCUS Online: "Fischer can not stand criticism" . In: FOCUS Online . ( focus.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
10. ↑ Foreign Office: Ambassador Elbe retired . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed April 3, 2017]).
11. ↑ "Fischer wants to execute morality like an ax": - WELT. Retrieved April 3, 2017 . 
12. ^ Federal Foreign Office: Fischer sends ambassador to retire . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 14, 2005, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 3, 2017]).
13. ↑ FOCUS Online: "Fischer can not stand criticism" . In: FOCUS Online . ( focus.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
14. ↑ Fischer rejects criticism from the ambassadors . ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
15. ↑ Ambassador Elbe is to be recalled . In: sueddeutsche.de . ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
16. ^ "Saber rattles" against Russia - Mr. Steinmeier, thank you for this clear word . In: Cicero Online . ( cicero.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
17. ↑ Thomas Reunert: Ambassador a. D. Frank Elbe: “Americans don't love Europe” . ( derwesten.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).
18. ↑ "Fischer wants to execute morality like an ax": - WELT. Retrieved April 3, 2017 . 
19. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Archiv: Unity and Law and Freedom ?: 25 years of reunification - a balance sheet . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH, 2015, ISBN 978-3-89843-413-3 ( google.de [accessed on April 3, 2017]).