Werner Wnendt

Werner Wnendt (born March 15, 1952 in Gelsenkirchen ) is a German diplomat who was ambassador to Canada from September 2012 to August 2017 .

Life

After graduating from high school, Wnendt studied geosciences and law at the Ruhr University in Bochum from 1972 to 1976 and completed this course with a master's degree in geosciences. He then worked between 1976 and 1978 at the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) on a project on tin and tungsten deposits in Myanmar and then in 1979 as an employee in the Mineral Resource Management Section at the Institute for Joint Geoscientific Tasks in Hanover .

In 1980 Wnendt joined the Foreign Service and, after completing his career examination for the higher foreign service, in 1982 became Second Secretary at the Embassy in Kenya and a member of the German delegation at the annual conferences of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Shortly afterwards, however, in 1982 he became First Secretary at the embassy in Pakistan , where he was responsible for development programs and the aid program for refugees from Afghanistan .

Between 1985 and 1989 Wnendt acted as a consultant for European integration policy in the European and Planning Department of the Foreign Office in Bonn, and from 1989 to 1991 as permanent representative of the head of the Consulate General in Miami . He then took on the position of ambassador spokesman and head of the permanent representation to the European Union from 1991 to 1995 and was also a member of a working group for the peace process in the former Yugoslavia during this time .

After Wnendt was Head of the Office of the State Minister for European Integration in the Foreign Office between 1995 and 1998, he acted as permanent representative of the Ambassador in the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2000 and then as a foreign policy advisor in the Office of the Federal President between 2000 and 2003 . During his time in the Czech Republic in 1999 he and Harald Salfellner wrote a description of the history of the German Embassy in Prague, located in the Lobkowitz Palace , and on November 5, 2001, he was appointed honorary officer of the National Order of Merit of Malta .

From August 2003 to May 2005 he was Deputy High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Senior Deputy High Representative ) in Sarajevo and then Head of the Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo .

After finishing this activity, Wnendt became deputy head of the Department for Culture and Communication of the Foreign Office and Commissioner for German as a Foreign Language in 2007, before he was head of the Department for Culture and Communication between 2010 and 2012 and thus significantly shaped the foreign cultural policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. During this time he was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Max Weber Foundation - German Humanities Institutes Abroad .

In September 2012, was Wnendt Ambassador to Canada , where he succeeded Georg Witschel was, in turn, new ambassador to Indonesia was at the same time as such as Ambassador to East Timor accredited is.

Wnendt was replaced as ambassador by Sabine Sparwasser in the summer of 2017 .

Publications

• The Lobkowicz Palace in Prague. A place of German history in Prague . Vitalis Verlag, Prague 1999, ISBN 80-85938-65-0 (co-author: Harald Salfellner).

Web links

• Curriculum vitae on the homepage of the Embassy in Canada (accessed on June 28, 2013)
• Curriculum vitae on the website of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina