Dr Klaus Reinhardt
Klaus Reinhardt (70) served in the German Armed Forces for 41 years, 21 of which he was with the German mountain forces. He commanded every level from platoon to company, battalion, brigade and Army Corps. He was Senior Military Assistant to the then Minister of Defence, Dr. Manfred Woerner. In 1990, as deputy Chief of Staff (Plans) in the Ministry of Defence, he was responsible for the amalgamation of the Bundeswehr and the Former East German Army. In the same year, he assumed command of the Bundeswehr Command and General Staff Collgege, the German armed forces´ highest training institution which he forged into a strategic-operational think-tank. He opened it to for the countries from the East which earned him an honorary doctorate from the University Budapest, Hungary. In 1994, he built up the German Army Forces Command as the new agency for the Bundeswehr´s operations abroad. In this position he was in charge of the German deployments to Somalia, Croatia (UNPROFOR) and in Bosnia Herzegowina (FOR/SFOR). His military career culminated with the promotion to Four Star General as NATO-Commander of Allied Land Forces Central Euope. In this capacity he commanded 50.000 soldiers of 39 different nations which formed the International Peace Force in Kosovo (KFOR) and afterwards he integrated the Polish as well as the Czech Land Forces into NATO.
In 1967, he studied history and political sciences at the University of Freiburg. He graduated in 1972 and obtained his doctorate with the thesis of the “Failure of Hitlers strategy in the Second World War”. Today, he works as an author and commentator. He teaches at the University of Munich. He has written many articles and books and is a member of the “Human Security Study Group” which was established by Javier Solana. Until recently, he was “Senior Mentor” and “Senior Concept Developer” in NATO. For many years, he was the president of the “Clausewitz-Society” and a member of the “Advisory Board to the German Military History Resarch Institute”.
Since 2001, Klaus Reinhardt is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the BAUER Group
(Special foundation engineering, Special foundation equipment and Resources). He is also a senior partner with “Top Talent Management Consultants”.
He lives in Starnberg, Germany. He is married, a father of two adult sons and a dedicated grandfather of three grandchildren.