Rolf Friedemann Pauls

Rolf Friedemann Pauls (26 August 1915 – 4 May 2002) was a German diplomat. He was the first ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel, from 1965 to 1968, and was German Ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973.

Rolf Pauls
West German Ambassador to NATO
In office 1976–1980
President	Walter Scheel Karl Carstens
Preceded by	Franz Krapf
Succeeded by	Hans-Georg Wieck
West German Ambassador to China
In office 1973–1976
President	Gustav Heinemann Walter Scheel
Preceded by	Heinrich Röhreke
Succeeded by	Erwin Wickert
West German Ambassador to the United States
In office 1968–1973
President	Heinrich Lübke Gustav Heinemann
Preceded by	Karl Heinrich Knappstein
Succeeded by	Berndt von Staden
West German Ambassador to Israel
In office 1965–1968
President	Heinrich Lübke
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Erwin Wickert
Personal details
Born	(1915-08-26)26 August 1915 Eckartsberga, Province of Saxony, Prussia, German Empire
Died	4 May 2002(2002-05-04) (aged 86) Bonn, Germany
Civilian awards	Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit (1966)
Military service
Allegiance	Germany
Branch/service	German Army
Years of service	1934–1945
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	World War II
Military awards	Knight's Cross Iron Cross 1st Class Iron Cross 2nd Class

Life

Rolf Friedemann Pauls was born in 1915 in Eckartsberga the son of a Protestant clergyman. He graduated from the Naumburg Domgymnasium in 1934.

He was a career officer in the infantry of the Wehrmacht. Due to a serious injury, suffered as a company commander in Russia, he lost his left arm. Before he received a General Staff Officer Course, in 1942, he was the military attaché in Ankara, Turkey. In 1944, he was on the staff of the 363rd Volksgrenadier Division. In December 1944, Paul was awarded the Knight's Cross.

Pauls (right) speaking with Meyer Weisgal on the occasion of Konrad Adenauer's visit in Israel in 1966

According to a later report of General Hans Speidel, Rolf Friedemann Pauls was in the plans to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944, and was only on the basis of silence by others that he escaped arrest.

After the end of World War II in 1946, he studied law, graduating with a doctorate on the political system of the Bonn Basic Law in 1949. Before Pauls began to act as a diplomat in the Foreign Service, he worked at the Federal Chancellery, at the junction of the Allied High Commission as a personal assistant to Walter Hallstein, State Secretary and Vice Consul in Luxembourg.

He was married twice and had two sons.

Ambassador

In establishing diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel (only about 20 years after the Shoah) of parts of Israeli society, and his inauguration on 19 August 1965, was accompanied by violent counter-demonstrations. In addition to that of Pauls because of his past as an officer of the armed forces of Nazi Germany in World War II, where he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and as deputy military attaché at the German Embassy in Turkey, also during the period of National Socialism of the Israeli public appeared inappropriate for this office. But his three-year tenure as the first Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Israel was generally judged as successful.

Pauls was also Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States from 1968 to 1973, the People's Republic of China from 1973 to 1976, and to NATO from 1976 to 1980. From 1956 to 1960 he served as Counsellor in the United States, and from 1960 to 1963 he was Deputy Head of Mission in Greece. From 1963 to 1965, he was a department manager at the headquarters in Bonn.

Works

• Die atlantische Allianz: Zukunftsaufgaben, Möglichkeiten, Gefährdungen, J. P. Bachem, 1982, ISBN 978-3-7616-0662-9
• Rettet uns die Rüstungspolitik? Edition Interfrom, 1982, ISBN 978-3-7201-5152-8
• Deutschlands Standort in der Welt: Beobachtungen eines Botschafters, Seewald Verlag, 1984, ISBN 978-3-512-00693-7