Wolfgang Ischinger is an old school diplomat. Anyone who meets him immediately feels that he is still in the thick of world politics, always ready to assess current events, whether in the USA, China, Russia or the European Union. He always has the next security conference in view and his global network of contacts in the back of his head.
With Genscher on the way to reunification
Ischinger learned the diplomatic trade as an employee of Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. After his famous speech on the balcony of the German embassy in Prague, Ischinger accompanied around 1,000 GDR citizens on the train to Bavaria in 1989. He still remembers the fear people felt on their journey through the night until they finally arrived in Hof. At the time, Ischinger worried that the Stasi might get some travelers off the train if they stopped on GDR soil.
From the Dayton Treaty to the terrorist attacks in the USA
In 1995, at the end of the Bosnian War, Ischinger helped negotiate the Dayton Peace Agreement. But the politically most memorable day of his diplomatic life was probably September 11, 2001. On the day of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, of all places, he took up his post as German ambassador to the United States. He remembers having only an hour to chat with his new hires when the world suddenly changed.
Joe Biden is a guest as the newly elected US President
Ischinger has headed the Munich Security Conference since 2008 and hosted numerous heads of state and government, from Vladimir Putin to Emmanuel Macron. His most recent coup in February 2021: With Joe Biden, an incumbent US president took part in a security conference for the first time – even if it was switched on via video from Washington due to corona.
How do you get a US President’s commitment? John Kerry mediated, reveals Ischinger. Former Secretary of State and current US Climate Protection Commissioner Kerry sits on the Advisory Board of the Security Conference. But Ischinger and his team also made use of other relationships. After two weeks of arduous lobbying, it was done, he says today.
Ischinger does not want to think about possible successors
There is only one subject Ischinger doesn’t like to talk about: quitting. He doesn’t want to concentrate on Berlin’s Griebnitzsee, where he is at home, not just on his family, nor on hobbies like skiing or mountaineering.
He would rather also chair the next and the next but one Munich security conference. Of course, again as a face-to-face event, if possible: “Because in the end you need a personal conversation in diplomacy. And of course we want to offer that to the decision-makers of international politics in Europe and around the world as soon as possible.”
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