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The Deputy Permanent Representative
Ambassador Thomas Zahneisen serves as Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations.
Ambassador Thomas Zahneisen has been the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations in New York since March 2022.
Before coming to New York he served as Director for Humanitarian Assistance in the Federal Foreign Office (FFO) in Berlin following his role as Head of Division for Crisis Prevention, Stabilization, Peacebuilding and Mediation from 2015 to 2017.
Ambassador Zahneisen has combined nearly ten years of experience working in a diplomatic capacity with the regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He headed the Foreign Office’s Task Force on Afghanistan/Pakistan (2014-2015), served as Deputy Head of the German Embassy in Kabul from 2010 to 2012, and as Civilian Head of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Feyzabad from 2007 to 2008.
He worked as Deputy for the FFO’s Foreign Policy Planning Unit and as German exchange diplomat in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris (UN Security Council team). Other postings abroad led him to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the German Mission to the UN in New York, as well as the German Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda.
He holds degrees in Chemistry from University of Marburg and Université de Paris and in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.