Diplomat with profound experience in international crisis management and geostrategy

After more than 35 years as a diplomat, Ambassador Seidt ended his career as Inspector General of the German foreign service. His focus is on strategy and crisis management. Ambassador Seidt’s international networks include state and non-state actors as well as representatives from leading international think tanks.

Career

Ambassador Seidt joined the German foreign service in 1982. He served in Moscow and Nairobi and was posted to Germany’ s NATO-delegation in Brussels in 1991. During the Balkan wars, Ambassador Seidt served as deputy head of the German government’s Special Task Force Bosnia (So-Bos). In 1998, he was transferred to the German embassy in Washington, D.C.

From 2006 to 2008 Hans-Ulrich Seidt served as Germany’s ambassador to Afghanistan and from 2009 to 2012 as ambassador to the Republic of Korea. In 2012 Ambassador Seidt became Director-General for Culture and Communication in the German foreign office in Berlin and ended his career as Inspector General of the German foreign service in 2017.

Education and academic background

Ambassador Seidt is a reserve officer of the German Air Force. After his military service he studied law, history, and political sciences at the universities of Tübingen, Geneva and Bonn. He passed both legal examinations with distinction and continued his studies at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in Paris. In 1983 he received his PhD in history and political sciences from Bonn University.

Ambassador Seidt’s focus is on international strategy and geopolitics. He worked twice as research fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations, was a lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin and taught as guest professor at Chonnam National University, Gwangju (Korea). He is a non-resident fellow of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) at Princeton University and German Co-President of the Swiss Afghanistan Institute/Bibliotheca Afghanica. Ambassador Seidt received honorary doctorates from Valparaiso University and Chonnam National University.

Private

Ambassador Seidt has five grandsons. They keep him busy.