Heusgen joined the diplomatic service of West Germany in 1980. His first posting was in the press and economic affairs at the Consulate General in Chicago from 1983 to 1986. He served at the German Embassy in Paris until 1988, before returning to the Federal Foreign Office headquarters in Bonn, where he took on the role of Private Secretary to the Coordinator for German-French Relations from 1988 to 1990. Heusgen also held the positions of Deputy Head of the special section in charge of negotiations of the Treaty of Maastricht, Deputy Head in charge of European Affairs in the private office of Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. He was later appointed Director of the Policy Unit of the High Representative Javier Solana in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels from 1999 to 2005. In 2005 Heusgen became Under-Secretary for Foreign and Security Policy in the German Chancellery. In this capacity, he served as chief advisor on foreign and security policy to ChancellorAngela Merkel. By the end of his term, he was the longest-serving official in this position. He was succeeded in 2017 by Jan Hecker, a former judge at the Federal Administrative Court. In November 2016 it became known that Heusgen would succeed Harald Braun as Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations in New York in 2017. In this capacity, he led the country’s campaign for the United Nations Security Council election in 2018. He subsequently served as the President of the United Nations Security Council in April 2019 and will again take up the post in July 2020 when Germany assumes the Presidency once more. During his time chairing the Security Council, Heusgen notably led negotiations in July 2020 on extending aid deliveries to Syria for one year. Due to opposition of both Russia and China, the Council only agreed on one remaining Turkey border crossing. At the time, he told his Chinese and Russian counterparts to report back to their capitals that he had asked: “How those people who gave the instructions to cut off the aid of 500,000 children... are ready to look into the mirror tomorrow.”
Other activities
Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists, Member of the Honorary Advisory Council
Heusgen is married to fellow career diplomat Ina Heusgen, and has four children. He is a fan of FC Bayern Munich and in his free time he runs marathons. During his time at the Chancellery, he regularly invited foreign ambassadors to the Neuss Schützenfest in his hometown, including Phil Murphy in 2012, Simon McDonald in 2014, Philippe Étienne in 2015 and John B. Emerson in 2016.
Criticisms
In 2017, the German tabloid Bild spread leaked information from Russian hacker group Fancy Bear, believed to be linked to Russian intelligence agency GRU, who had hacked into the United Nations’ email system and obtained Heusgen’s correspondences, including one which suggested that he helped his wife get a job at the UN. Journalists familiar with the issue of working couples reported that it is not uncommon for both partners to seek employment. The Simon Wiesenthal Center listed Heusgen for 2019 among the year's 10 worst acts of antisemitism. German tabloid Bild “accused Heusgen in an editorial of ‘pure malice’ against the Jewish state.” The Wiesenthal Center further added that Heusgen “equated 130 rockets fired by terrorist Hamas at Israeli civilians in one week in March with the Jewish state’s demolition of terrorists’ homes”. This accusation was refuted by the Chancellor Angela Merkel in her reply to the Bundestag as well by several members of the German Government, including the State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office. In a letter to Wiesenthal letter he stated that the listing being “a big mistake” which “misses the mark and targets and honorable friend of Israel”. Israel’s Ambassador to Germany also defended Heusgen saying the accusation was totally inappropriate. The German Foreign Office pointed to Heusgen's long track record of supporting Israel's security.
