Josef Blotz

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Josef Blotz

Josef Dieter Blötz (* 22. November 1956 in Hadamar ) is a Major General of the Army of the Armed Forces . He has been Deputy Commanding General of the Eurocorps in Strasbourg ( France ) since October 1, 2019 .

Military career

Training and first uses

After graduating from the Fürst-Johann-Ludwig-Schule in Hadamar, Blotz joined the Bundeswehr as an officer candidate on July 1, 1975 , where he was initially assigned to the 3rd Company of the 42nd Jäger Battalion in Kassel . In 1976 he completed the officer candidate course at the infantry school in Hammelburg . From 1976 to 1979 he studied at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich and graduated as a qualified pedagogue . During this time he was promoted to lieutenant on October 1, 1977 . After completing his studies, he was transferred to Westerburg and Schwarzenborn , where Blotz served as platoon leader and company commander in the 152nd Panzer Grenadier Battalion from 1980 to 1987 . From 1987 to 1989 he completed the 30th general staff course at the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg .

Service as a staff officer

After completing the general staff course, Blotz was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Defense in Bonn , where he was employed as a consultant in the command staff of the armed forces (FüS II 4) until 1991 . After German reunification , Blotz took on a post in eastern Germany from 1991 to 1993 as an operations staff officer ( G3 ) of the 37th Homeland Security Brigade in Dresden . From 1993 to 1995 it was used by NATO . During this time Blotz was a staff officer in the staff department for intelligence at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium .

Back in Germany, Lieutenant Colonel Blotz took over a troop command with Jägerbataillon 581 (renamed Jägerbataillon 1 Berlin in autumn 1997) in Berlin and led this until 1997. Subsequently, he was again deployed to the Bonn ministry, where he was an advisor to the management staff for a year of the Army (FüH III 1) under the command of the Chief of Staff Norbert van Heyst . From June to December 1998 Blotz was the military assistant to the Chief of Staff, Hubert Gosch , of SFOR in Sarajevo . He was then transferred to Madrid , where from 1999 to 2000 he was Head of Training and Exercises in the Joint Headquarters Southwest ( Allied Forces South Europe ). Back in Germany, Blotz served from 2000 to 2002 as a group leader (G3 deployment) in the Army Command in Koblenz under the chiefs of staff Wolfgang Korte and Roland Kather . In 2002 he was transferred to Bonn, where he served as head of the department for concepts and capability analyzes in the command staff of the army (FüH III 2) under the head of staff Hans-Otto Budde . From 2004 to 2005 he studied at the National Defense University in Washington, DC , from which he completed a Master of Science in National Security Strategy . From August to December 2005 he was deployed to the special use of the Chief of Staff at the Army Command, Bruno Kasdorf , in Koblenz.

Service as a general

From January 2006 to September 2007 Blotz commanded Panzergrenadierbrigade 30 in Ellwangen and was appointed Brigadier General on December 1, 2006 in this role. Blotz's deployment abroad as part of the ISAF in Afghanistan also fell during this period , where he was deployed as Regional Commander North ( RC North ) in Mazar-e Sharif from February to July 2007 and was also a contingent leader of the 13th Bundeswehr contingent. The Ellwang Brigade handed Blotz over to Joachim Pollok on September 28, 2007 for dissolution. In October 2007 he took over command of the infantry school in Hammelburg and was thus also general of the infantry . He passed this command on to Hans Günter Engel on April 13, 2010 . On April 20, 2010, Blotz took over the post of ISAF spokesman in Afghanistan and is thus the mouthpiece of the ISAF commander, initially under US General Stanley A. McChrystal , after his replacement under General David Petraeus . He handed over this function to Carsten Jacobson in July 2011 . On October 1, 2011, he became Head of Department II Military Policy at the German NATO mission in Brussels . On July 1, 2013, he was promoted to Major General Director Operations Division in the International Military Staff (NATO HQ) in Brussels. On July 1, 2016, he succeeded Major General Walter Ohm as Head of the Operations Department in the Armed Forces Command . Flotilla Admiral Jan Christian Kaack took over this post on May 1, 2018 . Blotz himself has been on a foreign assignment as Senior Military Advisor of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) for a year since March 1, 2018 . This makes him one of the closest advisers to the head of the mission, the special envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General Ghassan Salamé . After his return in April 2019, Blotz became Deputy Commanding General of the Eurocorps in Strasbourg (France) on October 1, 2019.

Private

Blotz is married and has two children. He is a member of the Sovereign Knights of Malta and the Community of Catholic Soldiers (GKS).

Web links

Commons : Josef Blotz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Personnel changes in top military and civilian positions - October 2019. In: https://www.personal.bundeswehr.de/ . Press and information staff in the BmVg, October 8, 2019, accessed on October 14, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Personnel changes in top military and civilian positions. (PDF; 30 kB) (No longer available online.) BMVg, September 26, 2011, archived from the original on January 21, 2015 ; Retrieved September 28, 2011 .
  3. ↑ A German expert takes office in Libya. In: www. Einsatz.bundeswehr.de. February 14, 2018, accessed February 14, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Blotz, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blotz, Josef Dieter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Hadamar