General (retired) Egon Ramms is a former Commander of NATO Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum. He was born in Datteln, Westphalia, in 1948.
He joined the Bundeswehr on 1 October 1968 as an officer candidate and temporary career volunteer for three years, serving in the Unna-based Maintenance Battalion 470. From 1968 to 1971 he undertook his initial officer education and training at Aachen and Hannover. In 1971, he began academic studies in Darmstadt, from where he graduated as a Master of Mechanical Engineering (Diplomingenieur) in 1975. From 1975 to 1978 he was appointed Commander of Maintenance Company 70 in Stade. From there he continued his military service as the G4 maintenance officer, Headquarters 3rd Armoured Division in Buxtehude until 1980. Returning to the academic environment, he attended the General Staff Training Course in Hamburg for the following two years. From 1982 to 1984, he served in G3 Operations, 6th Armoured Infantry Division in Neumünster. This was immediately followed by two years as Chief of Staff and G3 in Germany’s Home Defence Brigade 51 in Eutin. From 1986 to 1988, he was Assistant Branch Head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Branch in the Federal Ministry of Defence, Armed Forces Staff III 5. His next appointment, again for a period of two years, was Commanding Officer of Maintenance Battalion 120 in Rheine. In 1990, he returned to the German Federal Ministry of Defence as the Assistant Chief of Branch in Army Staff I 7. Subsequently he was appointed as Assistant Chief of Branch in the office of the State Secretary for Procurement. In this position he was responsible for both Army and Air Force Armament and Logistics. From 1992 to 1994, he continued to work in the office of the State Secretary for Procurement, as Director of the Armament Section. In 1994, he was appointed as Chief of the Central Branch of the Army Staff, German Ministry of Defence. From there, in 1996, he took command of Logistics Brigade 1 in Lingen/Ems, for a period of two and a half years. In 1998, he assumed the position Deputy Chief of Staff, Armed Forces Staff V, Logistics, Infrastructure and Environmental Protection in the German Armed Forces. This was followed by his appointment as Director of Armed Forces Staff, Federal Ministry of Defence, commencing September 2000 from where he was assigned as Commander to the Multinational Corps Northeast Stettin in Poland in February 2004. He took up his post as Commander Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum on 26 January 2007. His main effort was the NATO-led ISAF mission in Afghanistan as its operational Commander. He finished his duty in the Federal Armed Forces and retired from the military service on 30 September 2010.
For the period of January-May 2016, Egon Ramms was a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at the ICDS, focusing on the issue of NATO’s political-military strategy and posture in the Baltic area.
