Knud Bartels (8 April 1952) is a retired
Danish general, who served as the
Danish Chief of Defence between 2009 and 2011 and was
Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2011 to 2015.
Early life
Bartels was born in Copenhagen in 1952, and is the son of Eyvind Bartels, who served as Danish ambassador in
OEEC
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
and later Washington, Knud Bartels, therefore spent much of his childhood abroad, living many years in
Paris. He joined the army in 1972, and went to
Royal Danish Military Academy the following year.
He went on tour on the UN mission to Cypres in 1980, and became Denmark's Permanent Representative on NATO's Military Committee in 2006.
Chief of Defence
He was appointed as
Danish Chief of Defence on 16 November 2009 (announced on 10 November).
He succeeded admiral
Tim Sloth Jørgensen who resigned after being involved in the controversy around a fake Arabic translation of ''
Jæger – i krig med eliten
''Jæger – i krig med eliten'' (Jaeger: At War with Denmark's Elite Special Forces) is a book by former Jægerkorpset member Thomas Rathsack. It details operations by Danish special forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Danish Department ...
'', a book by a former special forces soldier which he tried to suppress.
Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
As Chief of Defence and Denmark's former Permanent Representative on NATO's Military Committee,
General Bartels was Denmark's candidate for the post as Chairman of NATO's Military Committee. The new chairman succeeded Admiral
Giampaolo Di Paola (Italian Navy) on 1 July 2012. General Bartels' tenure as chief of defence was due to expire on 30 April 2012.
Although other chiefs of defence were considered for the top NATO job, in the final week before the vote the other candidates – as is the custom – sensing a lack of majority support for their own candidacy, withdrew from consideration so that the election of General Bartels could be unanimous when the committee met to vote on Saturday 17 September 2011. The new chairman is appointed for a 3-year term, near the end of which he is normally approved for a one-year extension (serving a total of 4 years as chairman).
Upon his election on 17 September 2011, General Bartels announced that he planned to step-down as Danish Chiefs of Defence on 30 April 2012 in order to prepare to take over as NATO Chairman effective 1 July 2012. However, following the resignation of Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi on 12 November 2011, Italy's new prime minister,
Mario Monti
Mario Monti, (born 19 March 1943) is an Italian economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a technocratic government in the wake of the Italian debt crisis.
Monti served as a European Commiss ...
, announced on 16 November that he had appointed Admiral Di Paola as Italy's new defense minister: at the time of this announcement, Admiral Di Paola was in Kabul, Afghanistan, on NATO business. The admiral resigned as NATO Chairman on 18 November, turning over to his deputy, Lieutenant General Walter Gaskin (U.S. Marine Corps), and flew to Rome. It was then announced that General Bartels would take over in Brussels on 2 January 2012, even though the new Danish government had not yet selected his replacement as Danish chief of defense. He retired on 15 July 2015, after 43 years of service.
Personal life
Bartels is married to Belgian Inge Vansteenkiste, where they have 4 children, 2 from each's former marriage.
After his retirement, he was the first person to be given the position of
adjunct professor
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and
the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
at the
Royal Danish Defence College
The Royal Danish Defence College ( da, Forsvarsakademiet; FAK) is an independent authority in the Armed Forces under the Armed Forces Commander's Defense Command, which provides training, research, advice and consultancy services in core military ...
.
Awards and decorations
External links
NATO BiographyNATO official YouTube channel Video
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartels, Knud
1952 births
Danish generals
Living people
NATO military personnel
20th-century Danish military personnel
21st-century Danish military personnel
Military personnel from Copenhagen