Wolfgang Ischinger

Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger (born April 6, 1946) is a German diplomat. He was Germany's ambassador to the Court of St. James's (the United Kingdom) from 2006 to May, 2008. From 2001 to 2006, he was the German ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Ischinger is the new Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, following Dr. Horst Teltschik. He is also Global Head of Government Relations, Allianz SE, Munich.

Life
Ischinger was born in Nürtingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. In 1963/64, he was an American Field Service foreign exchange student in Watseka, Illinois, where he graduated from the local high school in June 1964.

Ischinger studied law at the University of Bonn, Germany and the University of Geneva, Switzerland and obtained his law degree in 1972. He earned a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, MA, in 1973.

From 1973 to 1975, Ischinger served on the staff of the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York. He joined the German Foreign Service in 1975, and has served in Washington, D.C., Paris, and in a number of senior functions in the German Foreign Office. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Ischinger was Director of the Policy Planning Staff; from 1995 to 1998, as Director General for Political Affairs (Political Director), Mr. Ischinger participated in a number of international negotiating processes, including the Bosnia Peace Talks at Dayton, OH, the negotiations concerning the NATO-Russia Founding Act, as well as the negotiations on NATO enlargement and on the Kosovo crisis.

In 2007, Ischinger represented the European Union in the Troika negotiations on the future of Kosovo which led to the declaration of independence of Kosovo and to the recognition of Kosovo by most EU member countries, by the United States, and a number of other countries, in February, 2008. From 1998 to 2001, Ischinger was Staatssekretär (Deputy Foreign Minister) of the German Foreign Office. Ischinger has published widely on foreign policy, security, and arms control policy as well as on European and transatlantic issues. He serves on a number of non-profit boards, including the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the East-West Institute in New York, the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft Frankfurt, the Council on Public Policy Berlin, AFS Germany (American Field Service), and Youth for Understanding.

Ischinger is married to Jutta Falke, a journalist, and the couple has one child. Ischinger also has two children from a previous marriage. Before departing from Berlin to Washington, D.C. in 2001, Mrs. Falke-Ischinger was the Berlin bureau chief of the German weekly “Rheinischer Merkur”.