The Foreign Office, founded under Bismarck in the German Empire as a Prussian predecessor, is the most important institution of German foreign policy. At the same time, it serves as a traditional career haven for the German elite. Eckart Conze, one of the authors of the highly debated book "The Office and the Past," describes in this volume as confidently as succinctly the key stages of German foreign policy from the German Empire to the present - through the lens of this authority, its employees, and its political role in each respective era.