J.D. Bindenagel

Former U.S. Ambassador and a Fellow at the Global Ideas Center, Berlin

J.D. Bindenagel is a retired U.S. career diplomat who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999 as U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues. He also served as Special U.S. Negotiator for “Conflict Diamonds.”

Mr. Bindenagel is also an expert on Germany. He served in West, East and in united Germany, including as deputy chief of mission (1994-1996) and Chargé d’Affaires in the U.S. Embassy, Bonn, from 1996 to 1997.

From 2014 to 2019, he served as the founding Henry Kissinger Professor for security and governance at Bonn University. He currently teaches strategic foresight as Senior Professor at Bonn University and has published widely on international security issues in the 21st century.

Following his diplomatic career, Mr. Bindenagel was Vice President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and subsequently Vice President at DePaul University. Prior to his diplomatic career, he was assigned to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Germany.

In the early 1990s, he also worked in the private sector, as Director, International Government-Business Programs at Rockwell International.

Ambassador Bindenagel has experience advising private-sector clients on matters of domestic and international policy as well as on key multilateral issues that present potential risks to clients’ reputations and shareholder value.

In 2001, Mr. Bindenagel received the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award and the Commander’s Cross of the Federal Order of Merit from the President of Germany. In 2002, he received the Presidential Meritorious Service Award from President George W. Bush.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the President’s Circle of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the American Council on Germany and the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies. He was an APSA Congressional Fellow with Congressman Lee H. Hamilton.

He holds an MA in Public Administration and an AB in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.