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Diplomat Jan Hecker
Photo: Michael Kappeler / picture alliance / dpa
The biography of Germany's new top man in China was uploaded to the embassy website just two weeks ago.
It was not until August 25 that Jan Hecker presented his credentials in Beijing.
On Monday morning, shocking news made the rounds in Beijing: Germany's new ambassador to China has suddenly passed away.
The Federal Foreign Office has not yet made a statement about the cause of death.
Exceptional career
Hecker, a lawyer, has had a career that is described as being exceptionally cautious.
After completing his doctorate at the age of just 30, he worked as a lawyer for the international law firm Freshfields, among others, before moving to the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1999.
In parallel to this job, he completed his habilitation at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder, which appointed him adjunct professor in 2010.
In 2011, Hecker went to the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig as a judge.
He worked there until Angela Merkel's then Chancellery Minister Peter Altmaier brought him into the chancellor's circle of advisers in 2015, where Hecker headed the refugee policy coordination team until 2017.
Hecker, like today's head of the Chancellery, Helge Braun, belonged to the youngest generation of Merkel confidants, who proved their worth to the Chancellor during the refugee crisis and were henceforth considered for the highest tasks. When Merkel's foreign and security policy advisor Christoph Heusgen moved to New York as UN ambassador in 2017, Hecker succeeded him in the chancellery. He took the area of flight, migration and combating the causes of flight with him to his new position. Hardly anyone in Berlin has recently had such a great influence on the Chancellor's foreign policy as he.
In addition to Lars-Hendrik Röller, Merkel's financial and economic policy advisor, Hecker accompanied the Chancellor on almost all trips abroad.
The traveling journalists perceived him as a reserved but extremely knowledgeable expert - and as an extremely loyal confidante of the Chancellor.
In background discussions, he sometimes pointed out the press code to journalists on how to deal with confidential information.
He always wanted to stay in the background.
Responsible for Ukraine and Libya conferences
Jan Hecker was a quiet but powerful diplomat in the best sense of the word. Initiatives such as the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, accompanied by France and Germany in the so-called Normandy format, were his responsibility in the Chancellery. Likewise the Berlin Libya Conferences, in which a rapprochement between the warring groups in the country was achieved. When Merkel last met for the first time with the new US President Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Cornwall, one saw another man sitting at the table in the pictures: Jan Hecker.
At the end of 2020, Angela Merkel appointed Hecker as the new German ambassador to China.
A post that is now as important in German diplomacy as only Washington and Brussels - but potentially more delicate because Germany's relations with the People's Republic are more delicate than those with the USA and the EU.
As an academic, judge, political advisor or diplomat, it is anything but a trifle to make it to a top position in your respective guild.
Hecker succeeded in doing this in all four fields.
People who have met him have been impressed with his intellect.
Anyone who expressed skepticism about his appointment as the new German ambassador in Beijing did not base it on his abilities, but rather on a political stance that was imputed to him.
Hecker faced a difficult task in China
It is well known that Merkel invested considerable political capital in adequate relations with Beijing during her chancellorship. It did not allow itself to be dissuaded from a friendly relationship, no matter how China behaved - and regardless of the increasing international pressure to take a tougher line on the side of the USA. The image of China has not only clouded over among the German public in recent years, but also among experts and politicians in Berlin - a change in mood with which Merkel's China policy has not kept pace. Without a doubt, your foreign policy advisor, Hecker, helped shape and support this line.
Many observers assume that the next federal government will be more critical of China. The fact that Merkel sent Hecker to Beijing as one of her last important personnel decisions was read by some in Berlin and Brussels as an attempt to maintain her China policy of constant dialogue to some extent even after her departure.
Hecker no longer had the opportunity to develop his own profile in China. For tomorrow, Tuesday, he had invited the German correspondents in Beijing to get to know each other. He only appeared in public once, when the EU heads of mission met last Friday. They are showing solidarity with the Lithuanian ambassador, who was called back to Vilnius after relations between China and Lithuania had deteriorated rapidly. Hecker carried this signal with him; in the family photo he is in the middle of the third row.
After his accreditation in Beijing, Hecker was supposed to travel to Berlin again to advise Merkel until the federal election.
The Chancellery had refrained from this plan, however, as Hecker would have had to be quarantined again for weeks in Beijing, which they probably wanted to spare him.
In addition, it was important to the Chancellor "in view of the latest developments in foreign policy that the management of the German embassy in Beijing is fully operational," as the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" reported.
That was obviously a reference to the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan.
The new rulers in Kabul are currently trying to build relationships with their neighbor China.
Jan Hecker was 54 years old.
He leaves behind his wife and three children aged six, nine and twelve.