Walter Gorenflos

Walter Gorenflos (born August 20, 1928 in Bötzingen ; † September 21, 2017 ) was a diplomat who was ambassador to Upper Volta for the Federal Republic of Germany between 1968 and 1970 and ambassador to Brazil from 1984 to 1987 .

Life

Walter Gorenflos studied theology , philosophy and law at the universities in Basel and Erlangen as well as in the United States and graduated in law from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . In 1954 he passed the first state examination in law . On 18 July 1957 he completed there his doctorate to Dr. jur. with the dissertation The international radio wave distribution as a legal problem . In 1958 he passed the second state law examination and worked as a court assessor.

He began the preparatory service for the higher foreign service and after completing it worked at various diplomatic missions and at the Foreign Office in Bonn . As Legation Councilor and then as Legation Councilor First Class, he was a consultant and deputy head of department in the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office in 1967 . As such, he worked for Erwin Wickert , head of the division at the time, and held talks with him and with Horst Blomeyer-Bartenstein , the head of the international law division in the legal department, about establishing diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia . He then became Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Upper Volta on May 9, 1968 and remained in this post until 1970. His successor there was Michael Schmidt in 1971 .

After further assignments at foreign missions and at the headquarters of the Foreign Office, Gorenflos became head of the United Nations subdivision in the Foreign Office before, in 1980, as the successor to Andreas Meyer-Landrut in the rank of ministerial director, he was head of the political department responsible for the " Third World " in foreign affairs Office became. In this capacity, he accompanied Federal President Karl Carstens in 1981 together with the lecturer First Class Councilor, Berthold von Pfetten-Arnbach , head of the Department for India at the Foreign Office, and other high-ranking officials on a state visit to India .

In December 1982 he appointed the Israeli ambassador to Germany , Yitzhak Ben-Ari , after he had criticized the German government's Middle East policy. Ben-Ari publicly protested against “such hasty courtship by the PLO”, and went on to say that when Bonn politicians “practically off the wrist” advocated the self-determination of the Palestinians, one as an Israeli had to ask “whether the Eastern bloc was already over with the Arabs negotiated the self-determination of the Germans in the GDR ”.

Most recently, as head of the Third World Political Department , he also dealt with the status of the Iranian special envoy Sadegh Tabatabai . At the time, he was entrusted with the procurement of armaments and went on trips abroad as a special envoy of the Iranian government. In this context, he was involved in scandals over arms trafficking and drug smuggling in Germany in 1982 and 1983 . In 1982 Tabatabai retired from politics according to his own statements, but on January 8, 1983, he was detained by customs officials with 1.65 kilograms of raw opium in his suitcase at Düsseldorf airport and released on bail . His status as a special envoy was also confirmed by the Iranian government in 1983. On the legal background → main article diplomatic status .

In 1984 Walter Gorenflos succeeded Franz Jochen Schoeller as ambassador to Brazil . He held this office until 1987 and was replaced by Heinz Dittmann . Shortly before he took office, the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office had to discontinue investigative proceedings 810 Js 294/83 against him on suspicion of obstruction of justice, because Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher did not allow decisive documents in the Tabatabei case to be released.

He then became Chief Inspector of the Foreign Office in 1987 and, in this capacity, conducted investigations in 1989 against the then Consul General in Milan , Manfred Steinkühler . Before the day of national mourning in 1988, he had refused to pay tribute to the approximately 22,000 German soldiers buried in the German military cemetery Costermano in the province of Verona, unless the bones of the three SS men Franz Reichleitner , Christian Wirth and Gottfried Schwarz were removed from the cemetery would; As a compromise, the names of the three SS men who were killed were deleted from the cemetery “book of honor” and their ranks removed from the gravestones.

Walter Gorenflos died on September 21, 2017 and was buried on September 29, 2017 in the Poppelsdorf cemetery in Bonn.

Fonts

• International radio wave distribution as a legal problem , dissertation University of Heidelberg, 1957
• Don't be afraid of the mass migration , Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-88022-371-8

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Gorenflos obituary notice . In: FAZ of September 23, 2017
2. ↑ Ostpolitik: Laterna Magica . In: Der Spiegel from January 16, 1967
3. ↑ Gorenflos & stemming = false & field = all # highlightedTerm Occupation of a German diplomatic mission abroad ( Federal Archives of May 9, 1968)
4. ↑ PROFESSIONAL: Walter Gorenflos . In: Der Spiegel from July 28, 1980
5. ↑ So many intelligent Indians. About the state visitor Karl Carstens . In: Der Spiegel from March 16, 1981
6. ↑ MIDDLE EAST POLITICS: New tones. The Union initiates a swing in Middle East politics - past the junior partner FDP . In: Der Spiegel from December 6, 1982
7. ↑ DIPLOMACY: Somehow disappear . In: Der Spiegel from February 28, 1983
8. ↑ German Bundestag: Answer of the federal government to a small question of the MP Vera Wollenberger and the group Bündnis90 / Die Grünen, Drucksache 12/2575: Arms exports to Iran. (PDF; 254 kB)
9. ↑ Erwin Brunner: A diplomat as a dealer? Khomeini's relative and confidante had opium in his luggage. In: The time. February 11, 1983.
10. ↑ Germany and Brazil: 140 Years of Bilateral Relations. German ambassadors after the Second World War ( Memento from July 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on the homepage of the Embassy in Brasilia
11. ↑ PROFESSIONAL: Jürgen Ruhfus . In: Der Spiegel from October 31, 1983
12. ↑ For the good of the covenant . In: Der Spiegel of December 12, 1983
13. ↑ A "Mummy" reports: The Office and the Cemetery. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 6, 2010
14. ↑ Manfred Steinkühler : The end of my term of office . In: Friday. Culture of April 8, 2011
15. ↑ Obituary notice in the FAZ

predecessor	Office	successor
Christian Sell	Ambassador to Upper Volta from 1968 to 1970	Michael Schmidt
Franz Jochen Schoeller	Ambassador of the Federal Republic in Brasilia / Brazil 1985 to 1987	Heinz Dittmann
Paul Verbeek	Chief Inspector of the Foreign Office from 1987 to 1989	...