By popular demand, the ACG is delighted to make today’s discussion with Consul General David Gill a hybrid event. Mr. Gill will join us in person in our New York office to reflect on his seven years in NYC and his preparation for his next posting in Ireland.
David Gill grew up in a Protestant minister’s family in Herrnhut, Saxony, in former East Germany. He was denied a higher education by the Communist regime for political reasons. Instead, he trained and worked as a plumber before joining a preparatory protestant school and later the theological seminary of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. In 1990, he initially was the chairman of the Normannenstrasse Citizens’ Committee, which oversaw the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security at the Stasi headquarters and served as the secretary of the Special Committee for the dissolution of the Stasi of the East German Parliament. After reunification, Mr. Gill became spokesman and head of the research division of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi-Files before studying Law in Berlin and Philadelphia.
After holding positions in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and at the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Berlin, he served as the Deputy Representative of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union. During Federal President Joachim Gauck’s term from 2012–2017, he was state secretary and chief of staff of the President. Since August 2017, Mr. Gill has been the German Consul General in New York.