German Defence Attaché to Namibia

During an official ceremony on 16 December, Captain (Navy) Rainer Kümpel was accredited by the chief of the Namibian Defence Force, Lieutenant General ED Ndaitwah, as Defence Attaché of Germany to Namibia, residing in Pretoria.
In attendance were the Deputy Head of the German Embassy in Namibia, André Scholz, the Head of the Bundeswehr Advisory Group, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas Moeller, as well as other representatives of the Namibian Defence Force.

Rainer Kümpel has been serving in the German Bundeswehr since 1977.  After being trained as a helicopter pilot he spent several years as a pilot of the shipborne ASW helicopter “Sea Lynx Mk 88” of the Naval Air Wing 3 “Graf Zeppelin”. After stints as the Desk Officer for Military Strategy at the Federal Ministry of Defence in Berlin and spokesman in charge of Naval, NATO and EU affairs, he was promoted to Commanding Officer of the Naval Air Wing 3 in 2005. In 2006 he ascended to the rank of captain.
From 2009 until 2012, he was Head of the Naval Airborne Units in the German Fleet Command at Glücksburg. Since 2013, he is accredited as Defence Attaché in Pretoria, South Africa, and thus responsible for the cooperation between Bunderwehr and the national armed forces of several Southern African countries, including Namibia.
The rank of a naval captain is equal to an army colonel.