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 the U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues. He also served as the Special U.S. Negotiator for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, aimed at banning “Conflict Diamonds.”

Mr. Bindenagel is also an expert on Germany. He has served in West, East, and unified Germany, including as deputy chief of mission (DCM) in East Germany (1989-1990) and as DCM and Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn from 1994 to 1997.

From 2014 to 2022, he held the position of founding Henry Kissinger Professor for Security Issues at Bonn University. Currently, he is a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategy and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at Bonn University and has authored numerous publications on 21st-century international security topics.

After his diplomatic career, Mr. Bindenagel served as Vice President at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and later at DePaul University. Before entering diplomacy, he was deployed in Germany with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division.

In the early 1990s, he worked in the private sector, serving as Director of International Government-Business Programs at Rockwell International and as Senior Advisor for the Alliance Critical Materials Fund in Berlin.

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

In 2001, Mr. Bindenagel was awarded the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award and received the Commander’s Cross of the Federal Order of Merit from the German President. In 2002, he was honored with the Presidential Meritorious Service Award by President George W. Bush. The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, recognized him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2026.

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 German-American Institute. He previously served as an APSA Congressional Fellow with Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and currently serves on several non-profit boards.

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