Foreign Office (Germany) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Foreign Office is the foreign ministry

Foreign minister

A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...

of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, a federal agency

Federal agency (Germany)

Federal agencies in Germany are established to assist the country's executive branch on the federal level according to of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany...

responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany

Foreign Minister of Germany

The Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs is the head of the Federal Foreign Office and a member of the Cabinet of Germany. The current office holder is Guido Westerwelle...

. Since 2009, Guido Westerwelle

Guido Westerwelle

Guido Westerwelle [] is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has been serving as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011. He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions...

has served as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor, and Werner Hoyer

Werner Hoyer

Werner Hoyer is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany , currently serving as the Minister of State at the Foreign Office in the Second Cabinet Merkel under Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle...

and Cornelia Pieper

Cornelia Pieper

Cornelia Pieper is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party , currently serving as Minister of State at the Foreign Office under Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in the Second Cabinet Merkel . She was secretary general of her party from 2001 to 2005...

as Ministers of State.

The primary seat of the ministry is at the Werderscher Markt square in the Mitte

Mitte (locality)

Mitte is a central locality of Berlin in the homonymous district of Mitte. Until 2001 it was itself an autonomous district....

district, the historic centre of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

History

The Auswärtiges Amt was established in 1870 to form the foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

of the North German Confederation

North German Confederation

The North German Confederation 1866–71, was a federation of 22 independent states of northern Germany. It was formed by a constitution accepted by the member states in 1867 and controlled military and foreign policy. It included the new Reichstag, a parliament elected by universal manhood...

, and from 1871 of the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

. The Foreign Office was originally led by a secretary of state

Secretary of State

Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

(therefore not called a ministry), while the Chancellor

Chancellor of Germany

The Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany...

remained in charge of foreign affairs.

In the first years of the German nation-state under Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

, the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse No. 76 next to the Reich Chancellery

Reich Chancellery

The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...

had two departments, a political and an economic, legal and consular. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890 another department for colonial policy was established, spun off as the separate Reichskolonialamt

Reichskolonialamt

The Imperial Colonial Office was the German governmental agency tasked with managing Germany's overseas protectorates or colonies. After the First World War, on 20 February 1919, the Imperial Colonial Ministry replaced the Imperial Colonial Office...

in 1907. In the forefront of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

the Auswärtiges Amt had to deal with the own foreign policy of Emperor Wilhelm II.

In 1919, the Foreign Office was reorganized and a modern structure was established. It was now under the authority of a foreign minister

Foreign minister

, though still called Amt for traditional reasons. The most notable head of the Foreign Office during the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

was Gustav Stresemann

Gustav Stresemann

was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...

, foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, who strived for a reconciliation with the French Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

, which earned him - together with Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...

- the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

. In 1932 Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin von Neurath

Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat remembered mostly for having served as Foreign minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938...

was appointed foreign minister, he also held the office after Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

became chancellor, finding himself exposed to increasing competition from Nazi politicians like Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...

and Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

, who followed him in 1938.
A report written by historians and released by German government in 2010 shows that wartime-era diplomats played an important role in assisting the Nazis in carrying out the Holocaust, and disproved the claim often made after 1945 that German diplomats were "sand in the machine" who acted to moderate the actions of the Nazi regime.
While Georg Dertinger

Georg Dertinger

Georg Dertinger was a German politician from the German Democratic Republic .He was born in Berlin into a middle-class Protestant family. Dertinger briefly studied law and economics. After his study he became a journalist and later editor for the Magdeburger Volkszeitung and the nationalistic...

had been appointed the first minister of foreign affairs of East Germany already in 1949, the Auswärtiges Amt of West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

, due to the Allied occupation statute

Occupation statute

The Occupation Statute of Germany of April 10, 1949 specified the roles and responsibilities of the newly created German government and the Allied High Commission in West Germany...

was not reestablished until March 15, 1951. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...

took the office of the first Foreign Minister in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

until the inauguration of Heinrich von Brentano

Heinrich von Brentano

Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo was a German conservative politician and lawyer. He served as Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1955 to 1961.-Personal life:...

in 1955. Since Willy Brandt

Willy Brandt

Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....

served as Foreign Minister of the grand coalition

Grand Coalition (Germany)

In modern Germany, grand coalition describes a governing coalition of the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, as they are the two largest parties.-Weimar Republic:...

under Kurt Georg Kiesinger

Kurt Georg Kiesinger

Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a German politician affiliated with the CDU and Chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 until 21 October 1969.-Early career and wartime activities:...

from 1966, the office usually was connected with the position of the Vice-Chancellor

Vice-Chancellor of Germany

The Vice-Chancellor of Germany is, according to protocol, the second highest position in the Cabinet of GermanyIn case of the Chancellor's absence, the vice-chancellor acts in his or her place, for instance by heading cabinet meetings...

. From 1974 until 1992 - with a short pause in 1982 - Hans-Dietrich Genscher

Hans-Dietrich Genscher

Hans-Dietrich Genscher is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party . He served as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany from 1974 to 1982 and, after a two-week pause, from 1982 to 1992, making him Germany's longest serving Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor...

served as Foreign Minister continuing Brandt's Ostpolitik
Ostpolitik
Neue Ostpolitik , or Ostpolitik for short, refers to the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic beginning in 1969...

and playing a vital role in the preparation of German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

.

In 2000 the Foreign Office was relocated back to Berlin, where it moved into the former Reichsbank building

Former Reichsbank building

The former Reichsbank building is a building in Berlin, Germany, originally built in 1934–38 to house the Reichsbank, and today housing part of the Foreign Office....

, which from 1959 to 1990 had served as the seat of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany

Socialist Unity Party of Germany

The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

, enlarged by a newly built annex. The former ministry in Bonn remained a second seat. The Foreign Office has always stressed its continuity and traditions since 1870.

German representation overseas

In addition to the ministry's headquarters in Berlin, Germany has established embassies

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

and consulate

Consul (representative)

The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...

s around the world.

List of Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers since 1871

External links

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History

German representation overseas

List of Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers since 1871

See also

External links