Walter J. Lindner is a lawyer, diplomat and musician. During his time as ambassador, he was considered an exception among top diplomats and “Germany’s most colourful ambassador”. In the course of his career, the experienced crisis manager was, among other things, spokesman for Joschka Fischer and State Secretary at the... Read more
Walter J. Lindner is a lawyer, diplomat and musician. During his time as ambassador, he was considered an exception among top diplomats and “Germany’s most colourful ambassador”. In the course of his career, the experienced crisis manager was, among other things, spokesman for Joschka Fischer and State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office under Sigmar Gabriel. Most recently, he was German ambassador to India.
After graduating from high school, completing his civilian service, studying music in Munich, Graz and Boston, travelling the world and studying law in Munich, Walter Johannes Lindner (*1956) joined the diplomatic service in 1988.
He initially worked as an attaché in the legal department of the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn until 1990 and as a press officer at the embassy in Ankara until 1992. From 1992 to 1995, Mr Lindner was Permanent Representative of the Ambassador in Managua/Nicaragua, then Counsellor in the Press Office of the Federal Foreign Office and from 1998 to 2001 Counsellor at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. From 2001 to 2002, he was Deputy Head of Division GF 08 (Human Rights Working Group) at the Federal Foreign Office. He was then Spokesman of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin under Joschka Fischer until 2006 and from 2006 to 2009 Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kenya, also responsible for Somalia, Burundi and the Seychelles.
From 2009 to 2010, he headed the Crisis Response Centre at the Federal Foreign Office, before becoming Commissioner for Africa Policy at the Federal Foreign Office from 2010 to 2012. Lindner was then German Ambassador to Venezuela until 2014, before being appointed Special Representative of the Federal Government for Ebola. For the duration of this temporary assignment, his office as ambassador to Venezuela was suspended. From 2015 to 2017, Walter Lindner was Ambassador to Pretoria/South Africa with a second accreditation for Lesotho and Eswatini. From 2017 to 2019, he served as State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office and then as Ambassador at the German Embassy in India until 2022, thus fulfilling a lifelong dream at the end of his impressive diplomatic career.
Walter Lindner has been back in Germany since 2022 and is passionately dedicated to his new life as a pianist, composer and music producer. He has always used music as a means of diplomacy and in doing so has not always strictly adhered to protocol conventions. Authentic, pragmatic and unpretentious – this is how Walter Lindner has remained throughout his diplomatic career and this is also how he convinces as a speaker.