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Germany’s new consul general arrived in Atlanta in September, less than two months after the departure of her predecessor, Heike Fuller, marking the second straight woman in the position for the first time in recent memory and perhaps ever.
A lawyer by training like Dr. Fuller, Melanie Moltmann comes to the Southeast U.S. from Berlin, where she worked on legal issues related to immigration and visa policy.
Before that, for five years she served as deputy head of mission in the German embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she also handled press and public affairs.
A Russian speaker, Ms. Moltmann earned an LLM degree in Moscow between her legal studies and a three-year study program at the Court of Cassation in Schleswig, Germany. After two years of diplomatic training, she was off to a posting as deputy chief of mission at the German embassy in Armenia for five years from 2006-10 before working as a desk officer focused on Southeast Asia in the foreign ministry.
She arrives with her husband and three sons to an Atlanta that is awakening from more than a year of largely virtual meetings and shaking off a terrible fourth wave of COVID-19 that has canceled some major trade missions and business activities.
Among her first activities while settling in were joining the German-American Chamber of Commerce Southeast’s SME Business Development conference and attending multiple dinners hosted by the Halle Foundation, including one to held jointly to welcome Ms. Moltmann and the visiting Christian Lange, parliamentary state secretary to the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection.
Ms. Moltmann also provided remarks on German Unification Day Oct. 3 in front of the Berlin Wall section at the Atlanta International School, noting that the 31st anniversary celebration this year is being hosted by the state of Sachsen-Anhalt under the banner of “shaping the future together.”
“‘Together’ and ‘future’ are also the two words that perfectly describe how we work together here in the Southeast,” she said in a recorded message. “We have close and future-oriented cooperation in the fields of science, economy, education and culture that benefits all of us.”
Learn more about Ms. Moltmann and the Consulate General of Germany here.
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