American Council On Germany

NYC: The Global Effects of Transatlantic Trade Tensions, the Role of Central Banks in Europe, and the Challenges Facing the Deutsche Bundesbank
2019-10-16 12:30 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
The ACG and the Council on Foreign Relations will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Jens Weidmann, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank and Member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (2004 ACG Young Leader); moderated by Dr. John Lipsky, Peter G. Peterson Distinguished Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (ACG Board Member).
This event is only open to members of the ACG and CFR.
Dr. Jens Weidmann has been President of the Deutsche Bundesbank and a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank since 2011. He has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements since November 2015. After earning his Ph.D. in Economics from Bonn University, Dr. Weidmann worked at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, from 1997 to 1999, before becoming the Secretary General of the German Council of Economic Experts, until 2003. From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Weidmann was the Head of the Deutsche Bundesbank’s Monetary Policy and Analysis Division, and Deputy Head of the Economics Department, during which time he took part in the ACG’s Young Leaders Conference (2004).

Dr. John Lipsky (moderator) is a member of the ACG Board and the Peter G. Peterson Distinguished Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Prior to that, he served as First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Earlier, Dr. Lipsky served as Vice Chairman of the JPMorgan Investment Bank, JPMorgan’s Chief Economist, and Chase Manhattan Bank’s Chief Economist and Director of Research. He was Chief Economist of Salomon Brothers, Inc., from 1992 until 1997, after directing Salomon Brothers’ European Economic and Market Analysis Group. Before that, he spent a decade at the IMF. Dr. Lipsky earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at Wesleyan University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

NYC: A World Beyond the Wall
2019-10-17 18:30 - 21:30
The ACG, 1014 Inc., and the Consulate General of Germany will host a discussion and reception with Belinda Cooper, Professor at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights and New York University’s Center for Global Affairs; Hon. David Gill, German Consul General in New York (1992 ACG Young Leader); Stefan Roloff, German-American Artist from West Berlin; and Harf Zimmermann, German photographer from East Berlin.
RSVP here by Monday, October 14, 2019.
The panel “A World Beyond the Wall” will reflect on the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and culminated in German unification and the vision of a “new age of democracy, peace, and unity” as drafted by the Charter of Paris one year later. As the cohesive power of this vision has diminished and democratic institutions and practices come under attack on both sides of the Atlantic, the discussion will also touch on the challenges that are shaping our world today.

NYC: Populism and Nationalism on the Rise: A German Perspective
2019-10-21 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG and the Wirtschaftsrunde will host a discussion and luncheon with Stefan Schlüter, Program Director at the Diplomatic Academy of the German Foreign Office in Berlin.
Stefan Schlüter served in the German Foreign Office until the summer of 2017 and is now a Program Director at the Diplomatic Academy in Berlin. After studying political science at the University of Hamburg, Mr. Schlüter joined the German Foreign Office in 1979. His first foreign assignments brought him to Buenos Aires and Algiers. From 1986 to 1990 he served as the spokesman of the German Embassy in Tel Aviv before returning to the Foreign Office in Bonn as desk officer for the Maghreb countries. From 1992 to 1995 he served as Deputy Consul General in Los Angeles before returning to Bonn as Deputy Director for the southern part of Latin America. From 2000 to 2004, he was posted to the United States a second time, and served as Deputy Consul General in New York City before moving to Buenos Aires as Deputy Chief of Mission. In 2007 he returned to the Foreign Office in Berlin to assume the position of Director for Conflict Prevention, Peace-Building, Democracy Promotion and State-Building, promoting German projects in this field world-wide. In 2010 he was appointed Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean Region, residing in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago before moving on to his last assignment as Consul General in San Francisco in 2014.

NYC: In the Shadows of Reunification: The Treuhand and the Legacy of Privatization in the Former GDR
2019-10-24 18:00 - 20:00
The American Council on Germany, the University Alliance Ruhr, and the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany will host a discussion and reception with James J. Black, Of Counsel at Morrison & Foerster LLP, and Dr. Marcus Böick, Professor of Contemporary History at Ruhr University Bochum.
James J. Black is Of Counsel at Morrison & Foerster LLP in Washington, DC, where he advises German and Austrian companies on mergers and acquisitions and other business matters in the United States. He has a JD and an MA (German) from the University of Virginia and worked in Frankfurt for 10 years, including as a partner and head of the U.S. law practice at a major international law firm. As a Robert Bosch Fellow in Berlin in 1996-97, Mr. Black worked on privatization matters at the Bundesanstalt für vereinigungsbedingte Sonderaufgaben (BvS, Federal Institution for Special Issues Arising from German Unification), the successor to the Treuhand, which took up its work on January 1, 1995.

Dr. Marcus Böick teaches contemporary history at Ruhr University Bochum, where he studied history, political science, and social psychology. His main interests are German and European contemporary and economic history – with a particular focus on structural change. His recent books include Die Treuhand. Idee – Praxis – Erfahrung 1990-1994 (2018), Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Arbeit der Treuhandanstalt (2017), and Marketization/Vermarktlichung (2015). His new research project focuses on the emergence of the private security industry in Germany and the United States.

NYC: Inclusive Foreign Policy: The Role of Culture in Transatlantic Affairs
2019-10-29 13:00 - 14:30
The American Council on Germany and the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York will host a discussion and luncheon with Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office.
Michelle Müntefering has been Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office since March 2018. Concurrently, she has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013 and has served as Vice President of the Deutsch-Türkische Gesellschaft e.V. Berlin since June 2015. Prior to her appointment as Minister of State, Ms. Müntefering was the spokesperson of the SPD parliamentary group on cultural relations and education policy from 2015 to 2017. Ms. Müntefering’s political career began in 2002, when she became the Deputy Chair of the SPD in her hometown of Herne. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism with a focus on economics and participated in a traineeship at Vorwärts Verlagsgesellschaft (publishing house) in Berlin from 2008 to 2010.

NYC: Defending Freedom: How to Make Liberal Democracy Great Again
2019-11-05 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG and the Heinrich Boell Foundation will host a discussion and luncheon with Ralf Fücks, Managing Director of the Center for Liberal Modernity and Author of Defending Freedom: How We Can Win the Fight for an Open Society.
Ralf Fücks is Managing Director of the Center for Liberal Modernity, a German think tank that was founded in 2017. He came to this role after more than 20 years with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the political foundation associated with the Greens. At the center of his work were green economics and ecological innovation, migration, the future of Europe, and international politics. Before that, he was Co-Chair of the Greens (1989/​90) and Senator for Environment and City Development in Bremen.
Mr. Fücks is considered to be a prominent thinker seeking cross-party discourse, publishing in leading newspapers and delivering speeches as part of the public debate. He is an advocate for liberal ecology politics focusing on innovation rather than prohibition. Of special importance to him is a dialogue with the economy, which he considers an invaluable actor in a “green industrial revolution.” He is coordinator of the committee “Ecological Modernization” within the Petersburg Dialogue. Mr. Fücks is a committed European and transatlanticist as well as a proponent of the democratic opposition in Russia, Ukraine, and other eastern European countries.

NYC: The Fall of the Wall 30 Years On: Lessons from One of History’s Most Unexpected Inevitable Events
2019-11-14 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Ambassador John C. Kornblum Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany.
Ambassador John C. Kornblum has a long record of service in the United States and Europe both as a diplomat and as a businessman. He is recognized as an eminent expert on U.S.-European political and economic relations, in particular in central and eastern Europe. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1997 to 2001. Before that, he occupied a number of high-level diplomatic posts, including U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, special envoy for the Dayton Peace Process, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Process), Deputy U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and U.S. Minister and Deputy Commandant of Forces in divided Berlin. From 2001 to 2009, he was Chairman of Lazard Freres Germany. He currently serves as Senior Counsellor to the international law firm Noerr LLP and as a senior advisor to the worldwide consultancy Accenture. Ambassador Kornblum has also served on a number of Supervisory and Advisory Boards, including those of ThyssenKrupp Technologies AG, Bayer AG, Russell Reynolds, and Motorola Europe. He is a member of the Boards of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, the American Academy in Berlin, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and of numerous nonprofit organizations on both sides of the Atlantic, and he is a former ACG Board member. He received a B.A. from Michigan State University in 1964, and he has been the recipient of many awards, including a Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit from Germany and an Order of Merit from Austria.

NYC: European (Dis)Integration: Brexit and the Future of the EU
2019-11-15 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Ambassador Peter Wittig, German Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Ambassador Peter Wittig has served as German Ambassador to the United Kingdom since July 2018. He served as Ambassador to the United States from 2014 to 2018. Prior to this, he was German Ambassador to the United Nations in New York from 2009 to 2014 representing Germany during its tenure as a member of the UN Security Council in 2011 and 2012. Ambassador Wittig joined the German Foreign Service in 1982. He has served at the Embassy in Madrid; as private secretary to the Foreign Minister at the headquarters, then located in Bonn; and as Ambassador in Lebanon and in Cyprus. He was the German Government Special Envoy on the “Cyprus question” (the division of Cyprus). He has acquired extensive knowledge of the Middle East. Before starting his career in the German Foreign Service, Ambassador Wittig studied history, political science, and law at Bonn, Freiburg, Canterbury, and Oxford universities and taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg.

NYC: Transatlantic Stammtisch for Young Professionals
2019-11-21 18:30 - 20:30
The American Council on Germany will hold a Transatlantic Stammtisch on Thursday, November 21.
$10 to attend includes first drink. Snacks provided.
Transatlantic Stammtisch brings together young professionals for informal networking opportunities with individuals interested in transatlantic relations, Germany, and the German language. Conversations are conducted in both English and German.

NYC: Citizens, Cities, and Cooperation
2019-11-26 18:00 - 20:00
Providing mobility, health, education, job opportunities, and a safe and clean living environment in times of structural as well as climate change are common challenges for municipalities around the globe. A lot can be achieved at the local level. Through international city2city cooperation, these achievements can be shared, spreading best practices and impact beyond city limits and national borders.
Following a workshop, the public panel discussion will address the benefits of city2city cooperation, including corporate and civil society initiatives, and brings together experts and practitioners to answer the following questions: When does city2city cooperation work well? What are the challenges to international city cooperation? What role does the corporate and civil society sector play?
Panel discussion with Miriam Roure, Christian Herzog, and Andrés Ramirez.
Miriam Roure is passionate about improving cities through technology and design. She is the Program Director at URBAN-X, an accelerator built by MINI and Urban Us, dedicated to investing in and supporting entrepreneurs developing urban solutions. Previously, Miriam worked at MIT Senseable City Lab, a research laboratory dedicated to exploring the future of cities from a data and sensor-based technology perspective. Trained as an architect and urban planner, she also worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam. Miriam holds degrees from Harvard University (MArchII) and Cornell University (BArch). She co-organized the first Harvard xDesign Conference in 2013.
Urban X
Christian Herzog is the first point of contact at Berlin Partner for startups, investors, to be digitized SMEs and upscaling companies being interested in Berlin. Over the last 4 years, he has grown the capital into a “Start Alliance” aiming to strengthen the cooperation between Berlin and other international startup hubs, such as NYC, Tel Aviv, Shanghai and Paris. Christian holds the position of Head of Division Digital Business and drives the development of Berlin as an internationally known place to be for startups and as a breeding ground for innovations in the area of Smart Cities, ICT, Media, Creative Industries and Digital Transformation.
Berlin Partner for Business and Technology
Start Alliance
Andrés Felipe Ramirez is a Colombian writer, curator and cultural producer, working in the realm of architecture, urban planning and media. He is the co-founder and Managing Director of PLANE–SITE, an agency devoted to the production and dissemination of original content about the built environment. At PLANE–SITE, Andrés leads a wide-range of projects – from exhibitions and publications, to design competitions and international conferences. Andrés co-founded and directs Aerial Futures, a nonprofit research platform that convenes timely conversations surrounding the architecture of flight. Andrés conceived the traveling exhibition Denise Scott Brown: Wayward Eye (2018); curated Garden City Mega City, Urban Ecosystems of WOHA, at the Museum of the City of Mexico (2017); curated of the first contribution of the Seychelles to the XV Venice Architecture Biennale Between Two Waters, Searching for Expression in the Seychelles (2016), and co-curated Medellín, Topography of Knowledge at the Aedes Architecture Forum (2015).
PLANE-SITE
In cooperation with Berlin Partner, TOA, the German Consulate General New York , the American Council on Germany, and TEP.
Please register here to join us for the panel discussion.

NYC: The Future of German Politics and Transatlantic Relations: A View from Bavaria
2019-12-03 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG and the Hans Seidel Foundation will host a discussion and reception with Markus Blume, Secretary General of the Christian Social Union (CSU) and Member of the Bavarian State Parliament; Stephan Mayer, Secretary of State at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building, and Community; and Alexander Radwan, Member of the German Bundestag and Member of the Finance Committee and of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Markus Blume has been a Member of the Bavarian State Parliament since 2008 and the Secretary General of the Christian Social Union (CSU) since 2018. He has also served as the Chairman of the CSU Economic Commission since 2011. Mr. Blume first studied physics at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, then political science at the Bavaria School of Public Policy Munich.
Stephan Mayer has been a Member of the German Bundestag since 2002 and the Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building, and Community since 2018. Prior to being appointed as the Secretary of State, Mr. Mayer served as Spokesperson for Homeland Security of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group between 2013 and 2017. He holds a degree in law from the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich.
Alexander Radwan has been a Member of the German Bundestag since 2013, where he is a Member of the Finance Committee and of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Radwan also serves as Spokesperson for Middle East Affairs. Prior to being appointed to the Bundestag, Mr. Radwan served as a Member of the European Parliament (CSU/European People’s Party) from 1999 to 2008 and then as a Member of the Bavarian State Parliament from 2008 to 2013. Mr. Radawan studied Mechanical Engineering at the Fachhochschule Munich, then law at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich.

NYC: 27th Annual John J. McCloy Awards Dinner
2019-12-04 18:00 - 22:00

NYC: From the Peaceful Revolution to German Unification: Reflecting on 30 Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall
2019-12-09 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG and the Consulate General of Germany will host a discussion and luncheon with Markus Meckel, former Foreign Minister of the GDR and former Member of the German Bundestag (SPD).
Markus Meckel is a German politician and former Protestant pastor who was a prominent critic of the East German (GDR) regime. He grew up in the German Democratic Republic and was a member of the opposition starting in the 1970s. In 1989, he co-founded the Social Democratic Party in the GDR and became its deputy chairman. After the first free democratic elections in the GDR, he served as Foreign Minister and negotiated German unification in the framework of the 2+4 talks involving the two Germanies and the four allied powers. Later he served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2009.

NYC: Protecting You Digital Identity: The Future of Data Security
2019-12-13 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Professor Dr. Christoph Meinel, CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institute and Dean of the Digital Engineering Faculty at Potsdam University.
Professor Dr. Christoph Meinel is CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institut and Dean of the Digital Engineering Faculty at Potsdam University. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at HPI and holds the Chair of Internet Technologies and Systems. He teaches courses on IT Systems Engineering in HPI’s Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree programs and on the MOOC (massive open online courses) platform developed by his team openHPI. He supervises numerous Ph.D. projects and is a teacher at the HPI School of Design Thinking.
Professor Dr. Meinel’s current research focuses on security engineering, knowledge engineering, and Web 3.0/Semantic Web. He is also scientifically active in Design Thinking research. His earlier scientific work concentrated on efficient algorithms and complexity theory. He is the author or coauthor of more than 25 books and anthologies, as well as numerous conference proceedings. He has had more than 550 (peer-reviewed) papers published in scientific journals and at international conferences and holds a number of international patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), Director of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program, Honorary Professor at the TU Beijing and at the Dalian University of Technology, Visiting Professor at Shanghai University, Concurrent Professor at the University of Nanjing, and a member of numerous scientific committees and Supervisory Boards.

NYC: German Foreign Policy in a World Without Leadership
2020-01-17 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Professor Dr. Stefan Fröhlich, Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
This event is only open to members of the ACG.
Stefan Fröhlich is Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is currently also a guest professor at the College of Europe (in Brugge and Natolin) at Oxford University, and at the Universities of Bonn and Zurich. His fields of research include EU foreign, economic, and security policy; transatlantic relations; German foreign, economic, and security policy; and international political economy. He is a frequent commentator on international affairs for German and international media.

Professor Dr. Fröhlich was Director of the postgraduate European Studies Program at the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn from 1998 to 2002 and spent time in Washington, DC, as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins (2002-03); the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2007); and the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy (2016-17).
He is a board member of the German Atlantic Council (Berlin), Center for European Integration Studies (Bonn), German Council on Foreign Relations (Berlin), German Society for Political Science, Association for European Integration (Berlin), and the Institute for European Politics (Berlin). He is the author of numerous books and more than 200 articles on German and European foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
He studied Political Science, Economics, as well as American and Spanish Literature in Bonn, Paris, and Washington (MA 1985; Ph.D. 1989; “Habilitation” (Dr.phil.habil.) 1996).

NYC: Transatlantic Trade and the Economic Implications of Brexit: A View from Germany
2020-01-28 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG and the Wirtschaftsrunde will host a breakfast briefing with Dr. Volker Treier, Chief Executive of Foreign Trade and Member of the Executive Board at the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, and Melanie Vogelbach, Head of International Economic Policy and Foreign Trade Law at the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce.
This event is only open to members of the ACG and the Wirtschaftsrunde.
Dr. Volker Treier is the Chief Executive of Foreign Trade and a Member of the Executive Board of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK e.V.). The DIHK is a network of bi-national German chambers, delegations, and representations of German industry and commerce (AHKs) in 92 countries worldwide. Dr. Treier earned his Doctorate in Economic Sciences at the University of Bamberg in 2002 and has been with the DIHK in various positions since 2003.
Melanie Vogelbach is Head of International Economic Policy & Foreign Trade Law at the DIHK. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies at the Technical University Dresden and her Master’s degree in Global Affairs at New York University as a Fulbright Scholar. Ms. Vogelbach has been at the DIHK since 2014, first as Press Secretary then Managing Director of its Federal Young Entrepreneurs Association. She has held her current position since June 2019.

NYC: New German and European Climate Policies
2020-01-30 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG and the University Alliance Ruhr will host a breakfast briefing with Professor Dr. Cristoph M. Schmidt, Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts and President of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research.
This event is only open to members of the ACG.
Professor Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt is the current Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts (Sachverständigenrat Wirtschaft) and has been a member of the council since 2009. He is also President of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen, Germany, and lectures on economic policy and applied econometrics at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. In 2011, Dr. Schmidt was appointed to the Enquete Commission for Growth, Welfare, and Quality of Life of the German Bundestag. His field of research is applied econometrics with a recent focus on macroeconomic questions related to energy, health, and labor market policy.
Dr. Schmidt received his M.A. and Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1989 and 1991, respectively, and in 1995, and he received the degree of Dr. rer. pol. habil. from the University of Munich. In November 2019, he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Economics and Management at Leibniz University in Hannover. He served as an Editor of the German Economic Review and the Journal of Population Economics, and he has published articles in journals such as The Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Public Economics.

NYC: Burden Sharing, NATO, and Foreign Policy Challenges Facing Europe and the United States
2020-02-04 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Stefan Liebich, Member of the Bundestag (Die Linke).
This event is open to members of the ACG only.
Stefan Liebich has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2009, representing the Berlin district Pankow/Prenzlauer Berg/Weißensee. He serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and is the spokesperson for foreign affairs for The Left. Mr. Liebich began his political career in 1990 when he became a member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) at age 18. In 1995, he was first elected to the Berlin House of Representatives. After being re-elected in 1999 and 2001, he became chairman of the PDS Berlin. He led the PDS Berlin to its first coalition with the Social Democrats, which governed successfully for ten years. Between 2002 and 2006 Liebich was the Group Chairman of the PDS in the House of Representatives and was re-elected in 2006. He became a member of The Left following the merger of the PDS and the Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice (WASG) in 2007. Born in Wismar in the GDR in 1972, Mr. Liebich studied business economics with a focus on information systems at the Technical University in Applied Sciences in Berlin.

NYC: The Impact of AI and Digitalization on Social Cohesion
2020-02-25 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG, the Hasso Plattner Institute, and the ZEIT-Stiftung will host a discussion and reception with Dr. Gesche Joost, Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Dr. Gesche Joost is a Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts and has headed the Design Research Lab since 2005. She conducts research and development projects with international partners in the areas of human-computer interaction, wearable computing, as well as user-centered design and participation. Dr. Joost is Germany’s Digital Champion on the European Commission’s Digital Agenda initiative. She advises the Commission on implementing the Digital Agenda for Europe, focusing on digital skills, the digitalization of work, and support for startups.
Up until 2010, she was a junior professor for Interaction Design & Media at the Technical University of Berlin in cooperation with Telekom Innovation Laboratories. As a visiting professor, she taught Gender and Design at the HAWK Hildesheim. In 2009, she received the Young Talent Award for Science from the Mayor of Berlin. She is the Chairwoman of DGTF e.V. (German Society for Design Theory and Research) and a Board member of the Technologiestiftung Berlin. She is also a Board member of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), an appointed member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), as well as a full member of the Goethe Institute.
This event is part of series of events being held across the country in 2019 and 2020 by the American Council on Germany and the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius on social cohesion, the polarization of politics, and the rise of populism in the United States and Germany.

NYC: Transatlantic Trade in Uncertain Times: Unpacking Trade Disputes between Europe, the United States, and China
2020-02-27 12:30 - 14:30
The ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Christian Forwick, Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, America; and Lena Knecht, Policy Officer for Transatlantic Economic Relations in the Directorate-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, America at the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
This event is open to ACG members only.
Dr. Christian Forwick is Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, America in the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, having been appointed in July 2018. Previously, he was Head of the Ministry’s budget division. Dr. Forwick has been working in the field of international trade since 1994 and spent several years in Geneva, Switzerland, at the German Mission to the WTO and in the department of Foreign Economic Relations in the German Federal Chancellery. His Ph.D. is from the University of Münster.
Lena Knecht is a Policy Officer for Transatlantic Economic Relations in the Directorate-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, America of the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. She oversees analysis of the bilateral trade relationship and covers EU-U.S. trade talks as well as the U.S.-China trade dispute. Ms. Knecht joined the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in 2014 to work in the Directorate-General for Digital and Innovation Policy. She studied law in Heidelberg, Berlin and Seattle. Ms. Knecht holds a Master of Laws in Intellectual Property Law & Policy degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Twenty-Eighth Annual John J. McCloy Awards Dinner
2021-10-13 18:00 - 22:00
The American Council on Germany’s Twenty-Eighth Annual John J. McCloy Awards Dinner honoring Oliver Bäte, Chairman of the Board of Management of Allianz SE, with the 2021 McCloy Award, and Robert B. Zoellick, Lead U.S. Official for the Two-Plus-Four Negotiations on German Unification and Former President of the World Bank, U.S. Trade Representative, and Deputy Secretary of State, with the 2021 Transatlantic Leadership. Award

A New Government; A New Foreign Policy? What to Expect from Berlin after Angela Merkel
2021-11-01 17:30 - 19:00
On November 1, the ACG will host a discussion and reception with Dr. Markus Ziener, Helmut Schmidt Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. With support from 1014.
Please Note: Proof of vaccination is required to attend. Dr. Markus Ziener is a Professor of Journalism at the Hochschule für Medien, Kommunikation und Wirtschaft (HMKW), University of Applied Sciences, in Berlin. He teaches political theory and economics, mass media, journalistic writing, and the history of the press. He is also the global affairs correspondent of the newspaper The Straits Times in Singapore and a regular contributor to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Deutschlandfunk/Deutschlandradio.
From 2006 to 2012, he was Washington Bureau Chief of Handelsblatt, Germany’s business daily. Prior to that, he worked as a field reporter, covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also served as Handelsblatt’s correspondent in Moscow (1994–1999) and Eastern Europe (1990–1994). From 1999 to 2001, he was foreign editor with the Financial Times Deutschland.
Originally from Darmstadt, he obtained his Ph.D. in politics at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, examining financial crises and reforms in Poland. He also spent time at Duke University through a GMF fellowship for foreign journalists.

Nord Stream 2 and Germany’s Precarious Dependency on Russian Gas
2022-03-03 17:30 - 19:30
Amid the tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Germany’s energy dependence and Nord Stream 2 have been major topics of discussion – with in Germany, across Europe, and in the United States. The pipeline has been a controversial subject for years, but in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine it is being used as leverage to try to get Russia to back down. However, the current moment is part of a longer narrative…
Join 1014 and the American Council on Germany for a discussion that will put the pipeline project and Germany’s energy dependency in a broader context. We will be joined by Sascha Müller-Kraenner, the Executive Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (Environmental Action Germany), an independent non-profit organization that was founded in 1975 and is focused on environmental and consumer protection. This event will be moderated by ACG President Dr. Steven E. Sokol and will be held as part of 1014’s “Two at 1014” series.
(All attendees must show proof that they are fully vaccinated. The wearing of masks is encouraged.) Sascha Müller-Kraenner has served as Executive Director/CEO of Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V., DUH) since Janaury 2015. DUH is a leading environment and consumer advocacy organization that works mostly at the German state and national as well as on the European level. He is also a founding partner and board member to Ecologic Institute, a non-profit applied environmental policy research institute with offices in Berlin, Brussels and Washington, DC. Before assuming his current role, he held various positions with The Nature Conservancy between 2007 and 2014, and earlier in his career he worked for the Heinrich-Böll Foundation. Mr. Müller-Kraenner studied Philosophy in Munich and graduated with honors in Biology and Public Law from the University of Bayreuth.

Zeitenwende: Germany’s New Foreign and Security Policy
2022-03-08 08:00 - 10:00
On March 8, the ACG will host a breakfast briefing with German Ambassador to the U.S. Dr. Emily Haber

What’s at Stake? Russia, Ukraine, and the Future of the Global Order
2022-03-31 08:00 - 10:00
On March 28, the ACG will host a breakfast briefing with H.E. Sigmar Gabriel, former Foreign Minister, Former Vice Chancellor, and Chairman of Atlantik-Brücke.

Germany’s Response to the War in Ukraine
2022-04-01 12:30 - 13:30
Germany’s dramatic change in foreign and defense policy is a direct result of the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. Berlin quickly imposed sanctions on Russia in conjunction with its EU partners and the United States. It also took bilateral steps such as freezing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Further measures remain on the table as Germany seeks to reduce its dependency on imports of Russian gas, oil, and coal and accelerate its transition to renewable energy sources. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition government have pledged to establish a €100 billion defense fund and stated that German defense spending will rise to at least 2 percent of GDP (up from 1.53 percent in 2021, according to NATO data).
German actions to implement these commitments will play a crucial role in the Western response to Moscow’s aggression, strengthening NATO’s defense and helping meet the threat Russia poses to European security. Join the ACG and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) for a hybrid event with Bundestag member Metin Hakverdi (SPD) on Friday, April 1. Metin Hakverdi joined the Social Democratic Party in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Budget Committee. He is the Chairman of the USA/North America Working Group within the SPD Parliamentary Group and a member of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group in the German Bundestag. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Hakverdi was a member of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 2008 to 2013, where he was on the Budget Committee and the Committee of Public Companies and Assets.
Mr. Hakverdi attended high school in Simi Valley, California, in 1985/86 and studied law at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel and at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He was a distinguished visitor at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in 2019 and a 2020 John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies (CES). He is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke e.V.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Watershed Moment for the International Order and a Critical Challenge for Global Leadership
2022-04-21 18:00 - 20:00
On April 21, the ACG will host a discussion and dinner with Dr. Norbert Röttgen, Member of the German Bundestag (CDU) and former Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. Held in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Financial Stability in an Unstable World: A Central Banker’s Perspective
2022-04-27 12:30 - 14:00
The American Council on Germany will host a discussion and luncheon with Professor Dr. Joachim Wuermeling, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Professor Dr. Joachim Wuermeling has been a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank since 2016. He is responsible for banking and financial supervision, risk control, and information technology. Prior to taking on his current position, Professor Dr. Wuermeling, who has a Ph.D. in Law, held a variety of executive-level posts in the financial and insurance industries as well as in politics. From 2011 until his departure for the Bundesbank, Professor Dr. Wuermeling was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Sparda-Banken in Frankfurt am Main. Prior to that, he was a member of the Executive Board of the German Insurance Association (Gesamtverband der Deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft) for about three years. From 2005 to 2008, Professor Dr. Wuermeling was State Secretary for European Affairs at the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, where he was also responsible for coordinating European policy matters. From 1999 to 2005, he was a member of the European Parliament (CSU). Professor Dr. Wuermeling also is a lecturer on European politics at the University of Potsdam.

New Faces in the Bundestag: What’s on the Agenda
2022-05-02 12:30 - 14:00
On May 2, The American Council on Germany and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung will host a discussion and luncheon with Isabel Cademartori, Member of the German Bundestag (SPD).
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.

Isabel Cademartori was elected to the German Parliament in 2021, where she represents the City of Mannheim. Ms. Cademartori is the only member of parliament with Hispanic heritage, and she serves on the Committee on Housing, Urban Development, Building, and Local Government, as well as the Committee on Transport. She is also a deputy member of the Committee on Health. Ms. Cademartori has also been a member of the Mannheim City Council since 2019.
Prior to her rise in electoral politics, she studied Business and Economics Education at the University of Mannheim, earning her master’s degree in 2014. Born in Brandenburg to a German mother and a Chilean father who immigrated to East Germany as a political refugee, Ms. Cademartori’s biography is one of the more unusual among her colleagues in the Bundestag. Her grandfather, Jose Cademartori, was the Minister of Economics in Salvador Allende’s government and was forced to flee Chile after Pinochet’s military putsch. She studied abroad in Chile and South Africa.

Annual Meeting of the Members
2022-05-10 18:00 - 19:30
Annual Meeting of the Members
Discussion and Reception
with special guest speaker
Ambassador Antje Leendertse
Permanent Representative of Germany
to the United Nations
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
6:00 p.m. Speech and Reception
