Foreign Office (Germany)

Foreign Office (Germany)
Foreign Office
Auswärtiges Amt
Bundesadler Bundesorgane.svg
Agency overview
Formed 1870 (refoundation 1949)
Jurisdiction Government of Germany
Headquarters Werderscher Markt 1
10117 Berlin
Annual budget €1.313 billion (2005)
Minister responsible Guido Westerwelle, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs
Agency executives Werner Hoyer, Minister of State at the Foreign Office
Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State for Europe
Website
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Startseite.html
Guido Westerwelle
Foreign Office on the Spree river

The Foreign Office (About this sound Auswärtiges Amt , abbr. AA) is the foreign ministry of Germany, a federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union. From 1871 to 1919, it was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany. Since 2009, Guido Westerwelle has served as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor, and Werner Hoyer and Cornelia Pieper as Ministers of State.

New Foreign Office building in Berlin (centre) with former Reichsbank (left)

The primary seat of the ministry is at the Werderscher Markt square in the Mitte district, the historic centre of Berlin.

Contents

History

The Auswärtiges Amt was established in 1870 to form the foreign policy of the North German Confederation, and from 1871 of the German Empire. The Foreign Office was originally led by a secretary of state (therefore not called a ministry), while the Chancellor remained in charge of foreign affairs.

Foreign Office on Wilhelmstraße 76, about 1880

In the first years of the German nation-state under Otto von Bismarck, the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse No. 76 next to the Reich Chancellery 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 in 1907. In the forefront of World War I 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, though still called Amt for traditional reasons. The most notable head of the Foreign Office during the Weimar Republic was Gustav Stresemann, foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, who strived for a reconciliation with the French Third Republic, which earned him - together with Aristide Briand - the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1932 Konstantin von Neurath was appointed foreign minister, he also held the office after Hitler became chancellor, finding himself exposed to increasing competition from Nazi politicians like Alfred Rosenberg and Joachim von Ribbentrop, 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.[1] [2][3] [4][5]

Foreign Office building in Bonn

While Georg Dertinger had been appointed the first minister of foreign affairs of East Germany already in 1949, the Auswärtiges Amt of West Germany, due to the Allied occupation statute was not reestablished until March 15, 1951. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer took the office of the first Foreign Minister in Bonn until the inauguration of Heinrich von Brentano in 1955. Since Willy Brandt served as Foreign Minister of the grand coalition under Kurt Georg Kiesinger from 1966, the office usually was connected with the position of the Vice-Chancellor. From 1974 until 1992 - with a short pause in 1982 - Hans-Dietrich Genscher served as Foreign Minister continuing Brandt's Ostpolitik and playing a vital role in the preparation of German reunification.

In 2000 the Foreign Office was relocated back to Berlin, where it moved into the former Reichsbank building, which from 1959 to 1990 had served as the seat of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, 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 and consulates around the world.

List of Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers since 1871

See also


References

External links

Coordinates: 52°30′53″N 13°23′58″E / 52.51472°N 13.39944°E / 52.51472; 13.39944


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Federal Foreign Office (Germany) — Infobox Government agency agency name = Federal Foreign Office nativename = Auswärtiges Amt logo = logo width = 200 px headquarters = Werderscher Markt 1 10117 Berlin formed = 1879 jurisdiction = Government of Germany budget = €1.313 billion… …   Wikipedia

  • Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany) — Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs …   Wikipedia

  • Foreign Minister of the GDR — This page lists Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the German Democratic Republic (1949 1990). See also : Foreign Minister of Prussia, List of German foreign ministers, Foreign Office (Germany) …   Wikipedia

  • GERMANY — GERMANY, country in north central Europe. The Talmud and the Midrash use Germania (or Germamia ) as a designation for northern European countries, and also refer to the military prowess of these peoples and to the threat they posed to the Roman… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Germany–Moldova relations — Germany …   Wikipedia

  • office — of‧fice [ˈɒfs ǁ ˈɒː , ˈɑː ] noun 1. [countable] a room or building where people work at desks: • The agency recently closed its Houston office. • I d like to see you in my office. • I applied for the job of office manager. • There is a shortage… …   Financial and business terms

  • Germany — /jerr meuh nee/, n. a republic in central Europe: after World War II divided into four zones, British, French, U.S., and Soviet, and in 1949 into East Germany and West Germany; East and West Germany were reunited in 1990. 84,068,216; 137,852 sq.… …   Universalium

  • Foreign relations of Denmark — Denmark This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Denmark …   Wikipedia

  • Germany — This article is about the country. For other uses of terms redirecting here, see Germany (disambiguation) and Deutschland (disambiguation) …   Wikipedia

  • Foreign relations of Mexico — Mexico This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Mexico …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”