Martin Schäfer (civil servant)

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Martin Schäfer (* 1967 in Bremen ) is a German political official and diplomat . He has been the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to South Africa , Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland ) since the end of 2017 . Before that, he was spokesman for the Federal Foreign Minister from 2013.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1987, Schäfer studied law and economics in Freiburg , Lausanne and Münster as well as political science , history and sociology at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris . 1996 doctorate he attended the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster for Dr. jur. Between 1990 and 1996 he was a lecturer at the administration academies in Essen and Bochum as well as at the Ruhrkohle vocational training company in Essen.

career

In 1996 he entered the preparatory service of the higher foreign service . After serving in the Foreign Office , he was deployed from November 1999 to May 2002 as head of the legal and consular department of the German embassy in Kiev ( Ukraine ). It was then used until 2005 at the embassy in Santiago de Chile , followed by another assignment until 2007 in the Foreign Office . From 2007 until he switched to the press department of the Foreign Office, he was head of the press department and spokesman for the embassy at the embassy in Pretoria ( South Africa ).

In the spring of 2011 he became an employee of the press office of the Foreign Office in Berlin and deputy spokesman for the ministry under Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP) in the then CDU-FDP government coalition. After the change of government in 2013, Schäfer became head of the press department and thus spokesman for the house under Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and, after Steinmeier had become Federal President , Sigmar Gabriel (both SPD) from January 2017 . In this position, he said he took part in more than 500  government press conferences, the last time on September 29, 2017. In doing so, he also gained a certain prominence on social media due to the way he spoke.

In September 2017 it was announced that Schäfer would return to South Africa at the end of October and take over the position of German ambassador there as the successor to Walter Johannes Lindner . This had already been vacant since February 2017, as Lindner had been called back to Berlin by the new Minister Gabriel as State Secretary in the Foreign Office.

Web links

  • Resume. In: Website of the German Embassy in Pretoria. Retrieved August 6, 2020 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Report in the Federal Gazette BAnz AT 05.03.2018 S1
  2. ↑ Message in the Federal Gazette: BAnz AT January 22, 2019 S1
  3. ↑ Message in the Federal Gazette: BAnz AT 08/13/2019 S1
  4. ↑ a b 2. Committee of Inquiry. 24th meeting on June 2nd, 2005. (PDF) bundestag.de , accessed on October 2, 2017 (minutes of the 24th meeting of the Visa Committee on June 2, 2005).
  5. ↑ a b c curriculum vitae of the ambassador. (No longer available online.) Southafrica.diplo.de, archived from the original on October 25, 2017 ; Retrieved October 25, 2017 .
  6. ^ Federal Foreign Office (AA) . In: Politics & Communication . ( politik-kommunikation.de [accessed on October 4, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Weser Kurier - Interview with Martin Schäfer. weser-kurier.de, December 9, 2016, accessed on October 3, 2017 .
  8. ↑ SVZ interview with Dr. Martin Schäfer. svz.de, January 20, 2017, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau - Panorama contribution: Diplomatic help flatfoot in Pretoria. fr.de, January 13, 2010, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  10. ^ Transcript of the press conference: Government press conference on May 6th. May 6, 2011, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  11. ^ Transcript of the press conference: Government press conference on September 29. Federal Government, September 29, 2017, accessed on March 15, 2018 .
  12. ^ Tilo Jung: The master in government German: Martins Schäferlatein - Jung & Naiv: Ultra Edition. March 24, 2016, accessed October 26, 2018 .
  13. ^ AA spokesman Schäfer becomes ambassador in Pretoria. politik-kommunikation.de, September 8, 2017, accessed October 1, 2017 .
predecessor Office successor
Walter Johannes Lindner German ambassador to South Africa
since 2017
personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen