Günter Rudolf Knieß

Günter Knieß (right) in 2009 with the President and Foreign Minister of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Jorge Taiana .

Günter Rudolf Knieß (born April 6, 1951 in Maßbach , Bad Kissingen district , Bavaria ) is a German diplomat who was German ambassador to Argentina from August 2008 to August 2012 and ambassador to Colombia from 2012 to 2016 .

Life

Günter Rudolf Knieß studied at the University of Karlsruhe from 1970 to 1976 and graduated with a degree in industrial engineering .

In 1976 he joined the Foreign Office and completed training as an attaché from 1976 to 1978 . From 1978 to 1981 he was the second secretary of the embassy at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Amman and from 1981 to 1984 he was the first secretary of the embassy at the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Managua .

After being responsible for bilateral relations between Germany and Brazil at the headquarters of the Foreign Office in Bonn (1984–1987), he was Counselor in Jakarta from 1987 to 1990 and then deputy head of the Southeast Asia Department in Bonn. From 1993 to 1996 he was Counselor in San José (Costa Rica) and from 1996 to 1999 he was envoy at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Mexico City .

From 1999 to 2003 he headed the International Conferences section in the Berlin Protocol , which deals with the organization of major conferences for the Federal Government. In 2003 he became Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Beirut , Lebanon . In 2005 he took over the management of the Foreign Service Academy in Berlin.

Günter Rudolf Kniess was the German ambassador to Argentina since August 7, 2008 . In September 2012, Bernhard von Waldersee , the previous commissioner for Latin American and Caribbean policy in the Federal Foreign Office, succeeded him as ambassador to Argentina, while Kniess succeeded Jürgen Christian Mertens as ambassador in Colombia in August 2012 .

Günter Rudolf Knieß is married and has two children.

Diplomatic career

predecessor	Office	successor
Tono Eitel	Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Beirut 2003–2005	Marius Haas
Rolf Schumacher	Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Buenos Aires August 2008 – September 2012	Bernhard von Waldersee
Jürgen Christian Mertens	Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bogotá 2012–2016	Michael Bock

Web links

• Curriculum vitae on the homepage of the Embassy in Colombia (accessed on September 9, 2012)
• Günter Knieß on You Tube