The European Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on Monday (September 6) that the German ambassador to China, Jan Hecker, passed away only two weeks after taking office.
The Embassy in the Chinese capital posted on its social media WeChat account that Hekel, 54 years old, is a foreign policy adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just took office on August 24.
The cause of death has not been confirmed.
Authorities say that Jan Hecker, the German ambassador to China, died just a few days after assuming the post.
Before assuming the position in Beijing, he was the foreign policy adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.https://t.co/kj6frNRstY
-Deutsche Welle News (@dwnews) September 6, 2021
The German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on its website: “We are deeply saddened and depressed to learn that the German ambassador to China has passed away suddenly.”
A spokesperson for the embassy declined to comment further to Reuters.
A guest at the event said that when Heck held an event about the German artist Joseph Boyce at his home in Beijing last Friday, he looked “very happy and good.”
Merkel’s confidant
Before taking office in Beijing last month, Heck was a foreign policy adviser to German Chancellor Merkel.
After joining Merkel’s Prime Minister’s Office in 2015, Hekel became a member of the team coordinating refugee policy.
In 2017, Heck was appointed as the head of the Foreign, Security and Development Policy Department of the Prime Minister’s Office, where he became a close friend of Merkel and will accompany the Prime Minister on his visits.
As a legal scholar, Hecker served as a judge at the German Federal Administrative Court from 2011 to 2015. Before that, he was employed by the Ministry of the Interior.
Hecker was born in Kiel in northern Germany in 1967. He is married and has three children.
