Volker Stanzel (born 22 September 1948) is a retired German diplomat and the former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Japan and China as well as former Political Director. Since 2015 he works and publishes on political topics in Berlin, Germany.
He is married and has two children.
Stanzel studied at the University of Frankfurt am Main between 1968 and 1972, majoring in Japanese and Chinese Studies as well as Political Science. During his undergraduate degree, he studied abroad at the University of Kyoto. In 1980, he received a Ph.D. in Japanese and Chinese Studies and Political Science from the University of Cologne. [1]
Stanzel joined the Foreign Service of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979 and began his career at the German embassy in Rome. There, and in his next post in Bonn, Stanzel worked in the Economics division. In Japan (1982-1985), he worked in the Press and Political Division and in Hungary in 1985, where he helped to prepare the first Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe devoted to Culture.
From 1985 to 1987 Stanzel was the Chargé d'Affaires at the embassy in Aden, South Yemen. He then worked in the Economics Department of the Foreign Office in Bonn before becoming the Assistant European Correspondent in the Political Department. From 1990 to 1993, Stanzel was Director of Press and Information at the German Embassy in China. Subsequently, from 1993-1995 he was the head of the Operation Center in the Foreign Office in Bonn.
In 1995, Stanzel became foreign policy adviser for the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the German Bundestag. Between 1998 and 1999, he was a visiting fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, D.C.
In 1999, Stanzel returned to Germany as Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Civilian Use of Nuclear Energy at the Foreign Office in Berlin. From 2001 to 2002, he was the Director for Asian and Pacific Affairs and from 2002 to 2004, the Director General for Political Affairs in charge of relations to the Asia-Pacific, the Near and Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
After 25 years in the Foreign Service, Stanzel became the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the People's Republic of China in 2004. In 2007, he was appointed Political Director of the German Foreign Service.
In October 2009, Stanzel became the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Japan.
Since retiring from the Foreign Service in October 2013, Stanzel has taught political science at Claremont McKenna College and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2015 he returned to Berlin, Germany, where he worked on and taught Chinese-Japanese relations at Free University Berlin and began to pursue a - still ongoing - project on modern diplomacy as Senior Distinguished Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs(SWP). He was a Senior Advisor to the German Marshall Fund and is a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations as well as of the Tibet Initiative Deutschland. He also is a Member of the Board of the Academic Confucius Institute at University of Göttingen and of the German-Japanese Business Council. 2018/2019 Volker Stanzel held the position of the Vice President of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). [2] In June 2018 he became President of the Association of German-Japanese Societies.
Stanzel publishes frequently on foreign policy and issues of Asian politics. His last book "Die ratlose Außenpolitik and warum sie den Rückgalt der Gesellschaft braucht" ("Clueless Foeriegn Policy and Why It Needs the Backing of Society") was published in Spring 2019.
Stanzel joined the SPD in 1966 which he left in 2013 after the decision to enter into another Grand Coalition with the CDU/CSU. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany first class.
2019 + With Hanns Günther Hilpert and Frédéric Krumbein: Chinas gelenkte Erinnerung. Wie historische Ereignisse erinnert, glorifiziert, umgedeutet und verschwiegen werden. In: SWP-Aktuell 2019/A 70, Dezember 2019
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2013 und earlier
Media related to Volker Stanzel at Wikimedia Commons
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