Bernhard Schlagheck, born in 1956, is a career diplomat in the German Foreign Service. He holds degrees in law (Ph.D) and economics.  He started his professional career with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt am Main and New York before joining the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1985.

He served in German Embassies in Kuwait and Moscow and was posted at the German Permanent Mission to NATO, Bruxelles. He worked as a Foreign Policy Counsellor in the German Federal Parliament and headed a policy section in the Political Department of the Foreign Ministry. He served as Deputy Head of the Political Affairs Office in the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Pristina, and acted as Chief of Staff to the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the future status process of Kosovo (UNOSEK), Vienna.

After a brief stint at Policy Planning in the Federal Foreign Ministry from July 2007, he took over as Head of Defence and Security Policy Division in August 2008. In early 2010 he was appointed Minister – Counsellor at the German Embassy to the Holy See, Rome. Returning to Berlin in late 2012, he headed the Office of the State Secretaries and, from 2014, the Directorate for Technology and Export Control at the Federal Foreign Ministry in Berlin.

He was appointed Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2016.

Welcome message from Ambassador Schlagheck