Volker Wieker

Volker Wieker (born 1 March 1954 in Delmenhorst, Lower Saxony) is the Chief of Staff (Generalinspekteur) of the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces. As the highest-ranking officer of the Bundeswehr he is the government's chief military adviser and the general ultimately in charge of its operations. Trained as an artillery officer, General Wieker served in every major foreign Bundeswehr deployment since 1996, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

Biography
Wieker was born in Delmenhorst and joined the Bundeswehr in 1974 for officer training in the army's artillery branch.

He studied Geodesy at the Bundeswehr University of Munich and served as an officer in an armored artillery battalion in Wildeshausen. He passed his General Staff training at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr (Hamburg) in 1989, followed by the US Army's Command and General Staff Officer Course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Upon his return to Germany, he was assigned as the operations officer of an armored brigade in Augustdorf.

Following battalion command with an armored artillery battalion in 1993-96, Wieker was deployed as the operations and training officer for the German Army Contingent IFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Upon his return, he was assigned to the Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany) in Bonn as Military Assistant of the Federal Minister of Defence (1997–1999). In 1999, he led a ministerial task force on the future force structure of the German Army, before taking command of an armored infantry brigade in Schwerin later that year.

From May to December 2001 Wieker deployed to Kosovo as Commander, Multinational Brigade South and Commander of the 3rd German KFOR contingent.

In 2002, he became Chief of Staff of the Army Office in Cologne, followed by Chief of Staff in the Army Staff in 2004. In July 2008, Wieker took command of the 1st GE/NL Corps in Münster. Since 9 October 2009 Wieker served as Chief of Staff of ISAF in Kabul, Afghanistan.

On 18 December 2009 German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg announced his intention to appoint Wieker Chief of Staff (Generalinspekteur) of the Bundeswehr. Two days after his promotion to four-star general on 19 January 2010, Wieker was formally appointed Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr.

Volker Wieker is married and has two children.