Thanks to Joachim

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Joachim Mitdank (born June 27, 1931 in Leipzig ; † April 11, 2017 in Berlin ) was a German diplomat . He was the GDR's ambassador to Finland , Great Britain and Ireland .

Life

Thanks, being the son of a coachman , started a commercial apprenticeship in the VEB Kühlbetrieb Leipzig after attending primary school in 1945 . From 1950 he attended the workers and farmers faculty , where he passed his Abitur in 1953 . He then studied foreign policy from 1953 to 1956 at the German Academy for Political Science and Law in Potsdam and graduated in 1956 with a degree in political science.

From 1956 he worked in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the GDR (MfAA). In the late 1950s he was Peter Florin's personal advisor . In 1959 he was appointed attaché . Between 1960 and 1962 he was initially acting head, then head of the 5th European Department ( Western Europe ) in the MfAA. From 1962 to 1964 he was counselor and acting head of the GDR trade agency in Finland. In 1965 he worked as a sector manager for Germany in the MfAA. From 1966 to 1968 he was a research assistant in the office of the Council of Ministers of the GDR with State Secretary Michael Kohl . In 1968 he received his doctorate in Babelsberg to Dr. rer. pole. From 1968 to 1978 he was head of the West Berlin department at the MfAA. Thanks was also given to the GDR government's commissioner for negotiations with the West Berlin Senate to facilitate and improve visitor and travel traffic. From September 1978 to 1982 he was ambassador to Helsinki . He then worked as a department head for Northern Europe in the MfAA.

In this function, I was thankful to prepare the state visit of the Finnish President Mauno Koivisto from September 29 to October 1, 1987 to the GDR. At the end of President Mauno Koivisto's visit, an agreement on visa-free travel between the GDR and Finland was signed.

1989/90 Mitdank was the GDR ambassador in London and second accredited in Dublin . He prepared the visit of the British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd in January 1990 and accompanied his guest on his visit to Berlin and Leipzig.

With thanks was a member of the SED , PDS and the party Die Linke as well as the author of numerous articles and books on the history and foreign policy of the GDR, including memories from his time as ambassador.

Fonts

  • Blockade versus blockade: the Berlin crisis 1948/49 . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement , vol. 36 (1994), No. 2, pp. 41-58.
  • From the confederation proposals of the GDR to the first official German-German technical discussions . In: Stefan Doernberg , Peter Florin (Eds.): Outlawed or respected? The GDR in the international community. History - viewpoints - documents . Brockmann & Klett, Berlin 1994, pp. 12-20.
  • The Berlin problem, the Cold War and the German-German relationship . In: Detlef Nakath (Ed.): German politicians in the GDR remember . Fides, Berlin 1995, p.
  • Diplomatic offensive towards Western Europe? In: Birgit Malchow (Ed.): The last one turns off the light. How GDR diplomats experienced 1990 abroad . Edition Ost, Berlin 1999, pp. 67-102.
  • Berlin politics between June 17, 1953, the Four Power Agreement and the opening of the border in 1989. Memories of a diplomat . Trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2003.
  • Berlin between East and West. Memories of a diplomat . Kai Homilius Verlag, Berlin 2004.
  • The GDR - founding, advancement and sale . Nora publishing group Dyck & Westerheide, Berlin 2008.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituaries: Joachim Mitdank. (PDF; 569 kB) In: Neues Deutschland . April 22, 2017. Retrieved April 25, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Thanks, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat, ambassador of the GDR in Finland, Great Britain and Ireland
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 2017
Place of death Berlin , Germany