NATO

Major General Ruprecht von Butler
German Army
Commander Joint Warfare Centre

Major General Ruprecht von Butler was born on April 27, 1967, in Coburg, Germany. He started his military service in 1986. In the same year, he began reserve officer training with the 12th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion in Ebern, while studying at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1989, Major General von Butler was re-assigned as platoon leader at the 12th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion. In 1991, he went on to study industrial engineering at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg.

In 1995, he was assigned as information technology officer at the 13th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion in Gotha. Following this assignment, he served as the Company Commander of the 2nd Company, 14th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion in Beelitz from 1995 until 1997. From 1997 to 1999, Major General von Butler was appointed military assistant to the Commanding General of the 4th Corps in Potsdam. In 1999, he completed his Command and General Staff Training (42nd Army General Staff Course) at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, Hamburg, and was assigned as ACOS G3 (Plans, Operations and Training) staff officer at the 1st Air Mechanized Brigade in Fritzlar. In 2002, he served there as Chief of Staff. From 2002 to 2003, Major General von Butler served as ACOS J3 (Plans and Operations) at the Kabul International Brigade as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. He then attended the British General Staff Officers’ Training at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Watchfield, United Kingdom, from 2003 to 2004. His next assignments included personnel manager at the Bundeswehr Personnel Office in Cologne (2004–2007) and Commander of the 13th Reconnaissance Battalion in Gotha (2007–2009), before he re-deployed to Afghanistan as Chief of Staff for the Provincial Reconstruction Team Feyzabad as part of the ISAF mission.

From 2009 to 2011, Major General von Butler was the Assistant Chief of Branch, Policy Planning Staff, at the office of the German Minister of Defence. He was subsequently assigned as the Chief of Afghanistan Operations Control Group at the Bundeswehr Joint Forces Operations Command in Potsdam, where he served until 2013. In the same year, he was re-assigned to the Federal Ministry of Defence for a year, where he oversaw the individual personnel management and development of officers in pay grade B3 and above.

In 2014, he was appointed Commander of the 37th Armoured Infantry Brigade in Frankenberg, Saxony, until his assignment as Chief of the J3/J5 Division (Exercises and Planning) at the Bundeswehr Joint Forces Operations Command in Potsdam. Major General von Butler then took over as Chief of Division I, Directorate-General for Forces Policy at the Federal Ministry of Defence, being responsible for forces readiness, space operations and joint forces planning. In 2021, he was assigned as Commander of the 10th Armoured Division in Veitshöchheim.

Major General Ruprecht von Butler became the Joint Warfare Centre’s 11th Commander on September 11, 2024. He is married and has five children.​​