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The power(lessness) of diplomacy
By Heinrich Kreft, former ambassador
As someone who has spent four decades in the Foreign Service, you watch a series like “Die Diplomaten — Inside Auswärtiges Amt” with a dual perspective: the professional and the personal. You recognize a lot of things — and at the same time find yourself wondering about the selection, the storytelling, and the inevitable omissions.
First of all, the obvious: The documentary is well made. It offers insights rarely seen on German television. Cameras in operations centers, confidential conversations, trips, crisis responses—all of this conveys a sense of dynamism and significance. For a broad audience, the series thus fulfills an important function: it makes it clear that foreign policy is not something abstract, but daily work under time pressure, often amid uncertainty, and occasionally at risk.
And yet this is where the first imbalance lies. The series primarily depicts the exception, not the rule. It thrives on heightened situations, crises and political careers, on political proximity and the international stage. Admittedly, at least since the Russian attack on Ukraine, we have been living in a time of multiple crises unlike any we have seen since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany—crises that include the wars in the Middle East and the transatlantic relationship, which has been fractured since Donald Trump’s return to office yet remains so crucial to us. Yet even today, the daily routine of most of the roughly 13,000 employees in Berlin and at over 200 diplomatic missions abroad is significantly more mundane. It consists of files, coordination, reports, personnel issues, visa cases, administrative work—in short: the grueling substance without which the spectacular moments would not be possible at all. This “gray” side is rarely mentioned. This is understandable from a dramatic perspective, but analytically insufficient.
Added to this is a second distortion: the implicit hierarchy. Naturally, the focus is on foreign ministers, ambassadors, and high-profile posts. This easily gives the impression that diplomacy—apart from the minister—is primarily the domain of top officials. Anyone familiar with the service knows that it is an apparatus based on a high degree of division of labor. The success of a mission often depends less on the brilliance of a single individual than on the reliability of many—from desk officers and consular officials to security personnel and local staff. This collective dimension remains underrepresented.
On the positive side, however, the series highlights the growing complexity of modern foreign policy. Traditional diplomacy—that is, confidential talks between government officials—is now only part of the picture. Other parts include crisis management, public relations, economic advocacy, issues of migration, climate, science and technology. In this regard, the documentary hits a real nerve: the profession has changed significantly in recent decades. The boundaries between domestic and foreign affairs have become porous, the pace has accelerated, and expectations for rapid responses have risen as well.
However, one would have liked to have had more analytical depth at this point. The series shows that foreign policy is complex — but it rarely explains why. Structural tensions remain hinted: for example, the relationship between political leadership and specialist departments, between headquarters and foreign missions, between short-term crisis mode and long-term strategy. The question of how decisions are actually made—who has what influence, what constraints are at play—is danced around rather than explored in depth. This is not a criticism of individual protagonists, but a shortcoming of the format.
Another point concerns self-presentation. The Federal Foreign Office appears as a learning, reflective organization that is aware of its responsibility. That is not wrong — but it is also not the whole truth. . Every large bureaucracy experiences inertia, inefficiencies, and internal conflicts. The challenge would be to make these ambivalences visible without resorting to sweeping criticism. The documentary remains cautious in this regard. One senses the closeness to the institution, the willingness not to jeopardize access by maintaining too much distance.
The presentation of crises is particularly interesting — and at the same time problematic. They are presented as moments of utmost professionalism: quick coordination, clear decisions, committed teams. There is, no doubt about it. However, anyone who has been on duty for a longer period of time also knows the other side: uncertainties, incomplete information, political directives that are not always consistent. Diplomacy is rarely as straightforward as it appears in retrospect. It is precisely here that a stronger reflection on the limitations of the portrayal would have been beneficial.
Despite these objections, the series is worth watching: it sheds light on a field that is often overlooked by the general public. It portrays real people, not abstract “diplomats,” and does not overlook the partners who, even today, often have to give up their careers—at least temporarily—or the children who, for example, must attend school in a foreign language. It also conveys—at least to some extent—the tension between national interests, international obligations, and individual convictions. For school and university students, it may spark an interest in a career in the Foreign Service—which is likely very much in line with the Foreign Ministry’s HR department’s goals.
For a knowledgeable audience, however, the impression remains ambivalent. You recognize reality — but in a condensed, selective form. You miss the breadth, the slowness, the routine. In short: The documentation shows the Federal Foreign Office in a state of emergency, not in normal operation. It is therefore more of a window than a mirror.
Perhaps that is inevitable. Television requires escalation, characters, dramaturgy. Everyday diplomatic life, on the other hand, is often unspectacular, sometimes monotonous, but that is precisely where its stability lies. Anyone who wants to understand how foreign policy actually works must see both: the obvious crises we all know from the news broadcasts—and which our foreign policy must address—and the invisible, painstaking work behind the scenes, which is indispensable as the foundation for successfully representing our country’s interests.
In this sense, the documentary “Die Diplomaten” is a success. It invites you to take a closer look and thus to better understand the challenges facing our foreign policy — and this, despite all the criticism, is its greatest achievement.
The author, Prof. Dr. Heinrich Kreft, is the program director for international diplomatic training at the Federal Foreign Office; his previous posts include ambassador to Luxembourg, minister-counselor in Madrid, and deputy head of the Planning Staff at the Federal Foreign Office. Until 2025, he held the Chair of Diplomacy at Andrassy University in Budapest. He is an author and co-president of the Diplomatic Council, an international network spanning diplomacy, business, and politics.
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