(Adnkronos) – A reshuffle is expected in some of Germany’s key diplomatic missions: according to government sources cited by ‘Der Spiegel’, the reallocated posts include those of ambassador to Tel Aviv, Moscow, Mexico City, Madrid, Beijing, New Delhi, and Brasilia. According to information from the Hamburg weekly, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, currently ambassador to Moscow, is expected to move to Tel Aviv. Lambsdorff would replace Ambassador Steffen Seibert, who is retiring. A former government spokesman under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Seibert had taken up the post in the summer of 2022.
Graf Lambsdorff’s successor in Moscow will be Ambassador Clemens von Goetze, currently head of the diplomatic mission in Mexico City. Von Goetze boasts extensive experience in foreign and security policy and previously served as ambassador to Tel Aviv, Beijing, and Tokyo. In Mexico City, he will be succeeded by the current ambassador to Madrid, Maria Margarete Gosse. In Madrid, she will be succeeded by Ambassador Heiko Thoms, who only last summer, at Wadephul’s request, had taken up the post in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, after the federal government had appointed the previous diplomatic representative in Ukraine, Martin Jäger, as head of the Federal Intelligence Service. Thoms had previously been ambassador to Brasilia. His succession in Ukraine is still open. It is not on the agenda of the Council of Ministers, which is expected to ratify the new appointments, effective in a few months.
The leadership of the New Delhi embassy also entails changes at the management level in Boris Pistorius’ Federal Ministry of Defense: Jasper Wieck, current political director, returns to India, where he already served as deputy ambassador from 2017 to 2020. Wieck takes over in India from Philipp Ackermann, who in turn moves to Beijing as ambassador. Ackermann has, among other things, served as envoy to Washington. Ackermann’s predecessor in China, Patricia Flor, will be the new German ambassador to Brasilia. Before taking up the post of ambassador in Beijing, she led the European Union delegation in Tokyo. She succeeds Ambassador Bettina Cadenbach, who is retiring.
