LIFELINES | Lebenslinien
DAVID GILL
About His New Role as Consul General in New York What brings Germans, Austrians and Swiss to America? What do they love about this country and what do they miss about their old home? In each edition we are excited to introduce interesting expats or emigrants. This time: David Gill, German Consul General of New York and former State Secretary and Head of the Office of the Federal President. David Gill held many different positions during his career: he grew up in Oberlausitz, as the son of a pastor and went on to study theology until he became Chairman of Normannenstrasse Citizens’ Committee at the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) and then Head of Administration and was later part of the Parliamentary Special Committee for the dissolution of the GDR Ministry of State Security/Office of National Security. After the reunification he was Spokesman and Head of Division of the Federal Commissioner for the Files of the State Security Service of the former GDR. Shortly after, he returned to academia to study law at the universities of Berlin and Philadelphia. After that he worked for the Federal Ministry of the Interior and with the Office of Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Berlin and was the Deputy Representative of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) to the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union for 8 years. The highlight of his career so far was State Secretary and Head of the Office of the Federal President from 2012-2107 in the Joachim Gauck administration. Since August 2017 he serves as Consul General in New York.
30 | HEIMAT abroad | FALL 2018
Mr. Gill, what brought you to New York? In my previous position as Head of the Office of the Federal President,foreign policy became more and more important to me and I enjoyed to grow, maintain, and strengthen relationships between Germany and other countries. That was one of the main impulses that led me to switch career paths to the Foreign Service.. It’s not too surprising that we ended up in a city in the US. In the past 20 years, I not only cultivated strong business relationships but also personal ones – my wife is American. What are your duties as consul general? Consulates have 3 main duties. First: regular consular services like visa applications, passport renewals and support with citizenship issues. Second: We talk about Germany and try to make our country more
accessible for Americans by explaining political developments and their reasons, and also to represent German economy and culture. And third, we try to understand America and paint a realistic picture for the political decision makers in Germany. The country is a lot more complex and multi-leveled than conveyed by the media. To demonstrate the complexity of your host country is one of the essential tasks of all diplomats in the Foreign Service. What’s a typical day for you? There is no typical day. And there is rarely a day when I spend the whole day in the office. There are just too many events and meetings I need to attend. It becomes very clear when you look at the past few days in my calendar: I gave the opening speech for the expansion of the German International
