Jürgen Chrobog

Jürgen Chrobog (born February 28, 1940 in Berlin ) is a German lawyer , diplomat and former State Secretary in the Foreign Office .

Jürgen Chrobog, 1995

Life

Chrobog is the son of Erich Chrobog, who was a ministerial conductor in the Reich Forestry Office . From 1962 he studied law at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg , the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the University of Aix-Marseille . After the legal state examination (1967, 1971) he was a lawyer in Hanover . In 1972 he joined the diplomatic service of the Federal Republic of Germany . He first worked in the German representation at the United Nations in New York City . As a member of the Free Democratic Party , Chrobog was responsible for European affairs and the Third World as an employee of Foreign Ministers Walter Scheel and Hans-Dietrich Genscher in the Foreign Office from 1973 to 1977 . He was posted to Singapore in 1977 and to Brussels in 1980 .

From 1984 to 1991 Jürgen Chrobog was head of the press department and spokesman for the Foreign Office and from 1988 also headed the ministerial office of Hans-Dietrich Genschers. From January 1995 to June 2001 Chrobog was German Ambassador to the United States . After this activity, he returned to the Foreign Office in Berlin as State Secretary, where Joschka Fischer had meanwhile taken over the ministry. Chrobog took over the areas of responsibility from Wolfgang Ischinger , who became his successor in Washington : United Nations, countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, foreign trade policy as well as legal, protocol and cultural issues. Since April 2003, when 32 Sahara tourists were abducted in Algeria (nine of them Germans), he headed the crisis team responsible for kidnapping Germans abroad as State Secretary in the Foreign Office until his retirement at the end of June 2005 .

From July 2005 to June 2013, Chrobog was CEO of the BMW Herbert Quandt Foundation , an office that Horst Teltschik held until the end of 2003 . He is also Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Panel Foundation . He was also a member of the MAN Ferrostaal AG Supervisory Board .

Jürgen Chrobog is married to the linguist Magda Gohar-Chrobog, a daughter of the Egyptian writer Youssef Gohar , and has three sons Karim, Fabian and Felix.

Kidnapping 2005

Jürgen Chrobog stayed with his wife and three adult sons in late 2005 on the basis of a private invitation from the Yemeni Vice Foreign Minister in eastern Yemen. On December 28, 2005, he and his family, including Felix Chrobog, were kidnapped on an overland trip. The family, which was traveling with a large tour group in Yemen and was accompanied by security forces, was kidnapped by members of the Al-Abdallah tribe from Shabwa province . The kidnappers took an opportunity when the security forces withdrew for lunch.

At noon on December 31st, the abductees were released. The Federal Foreign Office confirmed the release of the Chrobog family shortly afterwards. The kidnappers' demands for the release of detained tribesmen were not met. Instead, the tribal leaders signed an agreement with the Yemeni government that undertook to arrest five members of a rival tribe.

Curiously, on December 20, 2005, a few days before his own abduction, Chrobog had spoken about the kidnapping of Germans abroad in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk . The reason was the kidnapping of the archaeologist Susanne Osthoff , who had been released in Iraq two days earlier :

“People always put themselves in danger and one generally expects all-round insurance from the state. If someone is in danger, or is kidnapped, one expects the state to intervene immediately and resolve matters. That has just become increasingly difficult in this world. This almost social security thinking of the German citizens is of course something that has to be taken up. It doesn't really work that way. [...] Anyone who puts themselves in danger and knows this risk must of course also live with this risk. We will always do everything for everyone, even if they put themselves in danger of getting them out again. But we cannot work miracles. "

Awards

• 1993: Great Silver Decoration with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria
• 2001: Large Federal Cross of Merit

See also

• List of German ambassadors

Web links

 Wikinews: Jürgen Chrobog  - in the news

• Portrait . In: Die Welt from August 7, 2003
• The Chrobog family is free . At: dpa / Die Zeit from December 31, 2005
• In the realm of the Silver Lion. Hajji Halef Chrobog, Susanne of Arabia and us . In: Telepolis of January 5, 2006

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Board of Directors ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the Global Panel Foundation; Retrieved December 8, 2013. 
2. ↑ in the Internet Archive ; in the current supervisory board  ( 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. he is no longer represented; Retrieved September 18, 2012.  
3. ↑ Documentation: Chrobog interview from December 20, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, December 29, 2005
4. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.59 MB).

predecessor	Office	successor
Immo Stabreit	German Ambassador to the United States 1995–2001	Wolfgang Ischinger