Helmut Schäfer (politician)
ceremony 40 years of the FDP Rhineland-Palatinate
Helmut Schäfer (born January 9, 1933 in Mainz ) is a German politician ( FDP ). From 1987 to 1998 he was Minister of State in the Foreign Office .
education and profession
Born in Mainz in 1933, Schäfer has lived in Berlin since 1995. After graduating from high school, from 1951 to 1957 he studied German and English / American studies at the universities of Mainz , Innsbruck and Dayton / Ohio. After the state examination he worked as a teacher at grammar schools in Rhineland-Palatinate and from 1968 to 1977 worked as a consultant in the planning department of the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Culture, most recently as a ministerial advisor.
Political party
Since 1964 Schäfer was a member of the FDP, u. a. Deputy federal chairman of the German Young Democrats , deputy state chairman of the FDP Rhineland-Palatinate , member of the FDP federal executive board and chairman of the FDP media committee. For many years he was a member of the board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the “Atlantikbrücke”. 1990–1998 he was Vice President of the Liberal International .
Documents about Schäfer's activities are in the archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .
MP
From 1977 to 1998 Schäfer was a member of the German Bundestag (Rhineland-Palatinate state list), 1978-1987 member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, foreign policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group and chairman of the FDP federal committee for foreign, security and development policy and chairman of the German-Soviet Society of the German Bundestag.
Public offices
From 1987 to 1998 Schäfer worked as Minister of State in the Foreign Office under Foreign Ministers Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Klaus Kinkel . His work focused on German-American and German-Soviet relations as well as relations with the Arab states and the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. He was responsible for German foreign cultural policy, representative of the Federal Government in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the Council of EU Culture Ministers, as well as the advisory boards of the Goethe Institute and Deutsche Welle . Particular commitment and numerous trips took him to the Middle East, southern Africa (apartheid regime) and Central America ( Nicaragua , El Salvador ) to deal with the crisis . Meetings were held with UN secretaries-general and high-ranking government representatives worldwide, including - in some cases as the first German government representative - with Yassir Arafat , Yitzhak Rabin , Hafiz al-Assad , Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela .
Schäfer has received numerous invitations to give lectures at universities and foreign policy societies, especially in the USA (including Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco Councils on Foreign Relations). After the end of his tenure, Schäfer was a visiting lecturer at the Humboldt University in Berlin from 1998 to 2005 and a. Honorary member of the board of trustees of the International Journalist Program (IJP), the Ghorfa Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry and member of the advisory board of the German Language Association . He presented journalistic works and gave numerous lectures.
Honors
- Germany: Large Federal Cross of Merit (1998), Ring of Honor of the City of Mainz
- France: Commander of the Legion of Honor
- Great Britain: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE)
- Grand Cross of the Orders of Merit of Spain (1989), Italy (1991), Portugal (1989), Finland, Morocco, Mexico
See also
literature
- Parliament , 8 January 2018, p. 12.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schäfer, Helmut |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (FDP), Member of the Bundestag |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 9, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mainz |