Kersten Lahl

Kersten Lahl (2007)

Kersten Lahl (born July 6, 1948 in Bielatal ) is a lieutenant general a. D. of the army of the Bundeswehr . After retiring in April 2008, he was President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin until August 2011 .

Life

Lahl was a student at the Oberrealschule München-Pasing ( Max-Planck-Gymnasium , Weinbergerstrasse) and graduated from high school in the early summer of 1967.

Lahl joined the Bundeswehr in 1967 as a hunter in Füssen . From 1968 to 1970 he completed his officer training in Sonthofen , Idar-Oberstein and Munich . He then served for two years as a battery officer in the 4th Battery of the Mountain Artillery Battalion 235 in Bad Reichenhall until 1972 . From 1972 to 1973 Lahl was a lecture hall officer at the Army Officer School III in Munich. After this assignment, he took up a degree in business administration at the University of Mannheim in 1973 , which he completed in 1978 with a degree in business administration.

After completing his studies, Lahl was employed as battery chief of the 4th battery of the Mountain Artillery Battalion 81 in Kempten from 1979 to 1981 . From 1981 to 1983 he completed the general staff course at the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg . He then worked until 1985 as a consultant for armed forces planning in the command staff of the armed forces (FüS) in the Federal Ministry of Defense . From 1985 to 1986 Lahl took part in the US General Staff training at Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth , Kansas , and won the Eisenhower Award there.

Back in Germany, Lahl took over the position of Head of Operations and Training ( G3 ) in the staff of the 31st Panzer Grenadier Brigade in Oldenburg from 1986 to 1988 . From 1988 to the end of 1989 he was in command of the 113 observation battalion in Delmenhorst and then moved back to Bonn. Here he worked until 1991, i.e. in the months before and after German unification, as a consultant for the conception of the Bundeswehr in the command staff of the armed forces. After this assignment, Lahl served in the rank of colonel from 1991 to 1994 as adjutant and military policy adviser to Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker .

After that, Lahl took over command of Panzer Brigade 34 in Diez an der Lahn from 1994 to 1996 . This troop command was followed by two ministerial assignments at the general level: from 1996 to 1997 Lahl was sub-department head for personnel officers in the army, and from 1997 to 2000 he took over the personnel management of the top military personnel of the Bundeswehr in the newly created department of personnel, social and central affairs (PSZ) .

From 2000 to 2001, Major General Lahl was the commander of the Military District Command VI (WBK) and at the same time commander of the 1st Mountain Division , of which he was the last commander until September 30, 2001. As part of the restructuring of the armed forces with the establishment of the armed forces base as a new military organizational area, responsibility for cross-sectional tasks of the Bundeswehr and the "national territorial tasks" changed to the armed forces support command on October 1, 2001 . The divisions that had merged with the military areas up to this point were separated from the military area commands and the number of WBKs was reduced from seven to four while their tasks grew at the same time. Therefore, from 2001 to 2003, Lahl took over as commander of Defense Area IV "Southern Germany" ( Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg ), based in Munich. From 2003 to 2005 Lahl served in the Wahn air force barracks as deputy commander of the armed forces support command under the command of Lieutenant General Ulf von Krause . After his retirement, Lahl took over the Armed Forces Support Command as Lieutenant General on February 17, 2005 and led it until his retirement in February 2008.

Following his active service as a soldier, on March 31, 2008, Lahl became President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin, Germany's highest-ranking, cross-departmental further training institution in the field of security policy. He handed this task over to Ambassador Hans-Dieter Heumann on August 26, 2011 . Since 2012 he has been Vice President of the Society for Defense and Security Policy . He also heads the Forum Munich of the German Atlantic Society and publishes articles on current security policy topics.

Lahl is married and has three daughters.

Honors

• 2010: Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Personnel changes in top military positions. BMVg press and information staff, February 8, 2008, archived from the original on June 15, 2008 ; Retrieved April 4, 2016 . 
2. ^ The three gaps in German security policy. (No longer available online.) In: Authority mirror. August 30, 2011, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 21, 2016 . 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.  
3. ^ Society for Defense and Security Policy V., Federal Executive. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 15, 2016 ; accessed on January 21, 2016 . 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.