American Council On Germany

Election Season and U.S. Foreign Policy: Implications for Ukraine Support
2024-02-12 09:00 - 10:00 (America/New_York)
As the U.S. election campaign heats up, the future of U.S. support for Ukraine has become a hot-button issue. With a critical legislative bill that includes foreign policy assistance alongside border security and asylum policy measures still under negotiation in Congress, the likelihood of its passage dwindles. This scenario poses significant risks for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion and places additional pressure on European allies to swiftly expand their assistance to Ukraine, especially in military aid.
In a virtual discussion moderated by Dr. Dominik Tolksdorf, Research Fellow of U.S. Politics and Transatlantic Relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), with U.S. foreign policy experts, we will discuss the factors shaping U.S. policy on Ukraine during the election year, the geopolitical ramifications of conflicts such as those expanding in the Middle East, the options for the Biden administration to continue the support, and the implications for Ukraine and European allies. The discussion speakers include Scott Cullinane, Director of Government Affairs, Razom for Ukraine; Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program, Center for a New American Security (CNAS); and Hannah Thoburn, Senior Professional Staff Member for Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (tbc). Scott Cullinane is the Director of Government Affairs at Razom for Ukraine, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to unlocking the potential of Ukraine and building U.S.-Ukrainian ties. Before this, he was the founding Executive Director of the U.S.-Europe Alliance, a bipartisan, not-for-profit foundation dedicated to mobilizing Americans to advocate for the enduring strategic and economic partnership between the U.S. and Europe. Prior to this, he served in various positions with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, including as Professional Staff Member for the Europe Subcommittee, where he was responsible for a jurisdiction including the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia. Prior to this, he worked as a Staff Associate for the Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. In those capacities, he played an integral role in managing subcommittee hearings, planning numerous congressional delegations, and coordinating legislative texts. From 2013 to 2014, he worked as the Director of Government Relations for Aeros, a California-based aviation and defense company.
Mr. Cullinane was the recipient of the 2021 Helmut Schmidt Fellowship hosted by the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, Germany. This prestigious position commemorates the life, service, and legacy of Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
He is currently a Fellow at the National Security Institute, part of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and in the past has worked as an instructor for the American University of Central Asia. He has been selected to participate in numerous fellowships, including as a Penn Kemble Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy, the Congressional Foreign Policy Fellowship with the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the Young Leaders Forum with GLOBSEC. He is currently a member of the “Friends of the European Humanities University,” a Belarusian university operating in Lithuania.
Mr. Cullinane holds a B.A. in history from Saint Mary’s College of California and an M.A. in national security affairs from the Institute of World Politics.
Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism, and threats to democracy, and the state of the transatlantic alliance.
Prior to joining CNAS, Dr. Kendall-Taylor served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role, she led the U.S. intelligence community’s (IC) strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Dr. Kendall-Taylor was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies, and democratic decline.
Outside CNAS, Dr. Kendall-Taylor has been a CNN national security analyst. She is also a Distinguished Practitioner in Grand Strategy at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals, including the Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy.
Dr. Kendall-Taylor received her BA in politics from Princeton University and her PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where she conducted dissertation research on oil and autocracy.
Hannah Thoburn is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute specializing in Russian and Ukrainian politics, civil society in Eurasia, and the U.S. relationship with Eastern Europe. Her work has examined the manipulation of historical memory for political purposes, disinformation tactics and campaigns, Vladimir Putin’s foreign and domestic policy goals, as well as Russian influence in Latin America. Ms. Thoburn has also served as an election monitor in Ukraine and a poll worker in Washington, DC. Before joining Hudson, she was a Senior Research Assistant at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution as well as a Eurasia Analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative. She spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Ukraine.
Ms. Thoburn holds an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and a B.A. in International Affairs from Florida State University.
Dr. Dominik Tolksdorf (moderator) joined DGAP in June 2022. He works as a research fellow in the area of US/transatlantic relations at the Alfred von Oppenheim Center for the Future of Europe. Previously, he had worked as a program director for foreign and security policy at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Washington, DC since 2016. There, he focused on current developments in transatlantic relations and US and EU policies toward the EU neighborhood, especially Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the Balkans. Together with partners in the United States and Europe, he organized visitor programs, international study tours, workshops, and media fellowships.
Before that, Dr. Tolksdorf worked as a researcher, visiting fellow, and lecturer in Washington at the US Institute of Peace and SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, in Paris at the Institut français des relations internationales, in Brussels at the Institute for European Studies and Vesalius College, and in Munich at the Center for Applied Policy Research.
Tolksdorf holds a PhD from LMU Munich. In 2012, his book on the European Union’s policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, Die EU und Bosnien-Herzegowina: Außenpolitik auf der Suche nach Kohärenz, was published by Nomos.

Superwahljahr 2024: Election Upset in Pakistan
2024-02-14 11:00 - 12:00
On February 8, some 60 million Pakistanis – out of nearly 129 million registered voters – took to the polls in the country’s general election. The party of Imran Khan, the imprisoned former Prime Minister, won the most seats – but no party won a simple majority. This unexpected result is a rebuke of the country’s military leaders and has thrown the political system into disarray as Pakistan struggles to recover from an economic crisis and address militant violence.
In a deeply polarized political landscape, Pakistan’s military leaders had hoped that the election would bring an end to the political chaos that has existed since Khan was ousted in 2022. Instead, it appears that the crisis has deepened. The New York Times reported that never in the “country’s history has a politician seen such success in an election without the backing of the generals.” The election has stirred greater instability.
Both Khan and his main rival, three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, declared victory on Friday, increasing uncertainty over who will form the next government at a time when swift policy action is needed to address multiple challenges. Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion about the election in Pakistan and how things might unfold with Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter, Director of the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies. Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter has been the Director of the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies since 2013. From 1999 until 2013, he worked at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, where he held the position of Acting Director.
Prof. Dr. Schetter studied geography, history, education, Persian and Indonesian at the University of Bonn. He began his academic career researching the impact of ethnicity on violent conflicts. Then, his research focused on themes such as politics of interventions, spaces of violence (e.g., ungoverned spaces, frontiers), development, humanitarian aid, conflict, Jihadi movements (e.g., Taliban), and forced migration.
He has advised German ministries as well as government organizations and NGOs. Prof. Dr. Schetter serves on several boards. He is a member of the presidency of Welthungerhilfe and of the Board of Trustees of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden (SEF).

The Foreign Policy Implications of Elections in 2024
2024-02-16 08:30 - 10:00
The ACG and KPMG will host a breakfast briefing in Munich with Simone Menne, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany; Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director Center on the US and Europe (CUSE) and Fritz Stern Chair at The Brookings Institution; and Ambassador Kurt Volker, Senior International Advisor and Advisory Board Member at BGR Group; in conversation with Ambassador John B. Emerson, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Vice Chairman at Capital Group International, and Chairman of the American Council on Germany.

Simone Menne serves as the President of the American Chamber of Commerce Germany. She started her career for ITT, later joining Deutsche Lufthansa. In 2012, Ms. Menne was appointed CFO and stayed in this position till 2015. She worked as CFO at Boehringer Ingelheim from 2016 to 2017. In both companies, she was responsible for the foundation of the digital lab. Ms. Menne serves as a non-executive board member for BMW, Henkel, Deutsche Post DHL, JCI, and Russell Reynolds. She also owns an art gallery in Kiel, Germany.

Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller is an expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy. She is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations at Brookings. She held the Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress from October 2019 to March 2020 and served as the inaugural Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at Brookings from 2014 to 2019.

Prior to working at Brookings, she was a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where she directed the influential Transatlantic Trends survey program. She also managed the “New Power, New Responsibility” project. Her expertise includes trans-Atlantic relations, German foreign policy, NATO, the European Union’s foreign, security, and defense policy, international law, and human rights.

Ambassador Kurt Volker provides strategic advice to BGR on a full range of international issues and is co-chair of BGR’s advisory board. He helps BGR clients develop and execute strategies to achieve success in key foreign markets and to navigate the complex business, government, think tank, media, and public policy environment in Washington.

Ambassador Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with 30 years of experience in various government, academic, and private sector capacities. A former career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, he worked in official capacities for over 25 years under six presidential administrations. He was the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017-2019 and US Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. He currently serves on the advisory board of Augustus, an artificial intelligence company, and has previously served as a Director of CG Funds Trust and the Wall Street Fund. Other Foreign Service assignments include working with Senator John McCain and the Secretary General of NATO.

Ambassador John B. Emerson (moderator) was named Chairman of the American Council on Germany at the Council’s Annual Members Meeting on January 17, 2018. He is Vice Chairman at Capital Group International. Previously, he was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2013 to 2017. In 2015, Ambassador Emerson received the State Department’s Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service, an award given annually to one non-career Ambassador. In 2017, the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of the CIA awarded him their highest civilian honors for his service.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-02-20 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Tuesday, February 20 at 9:00 am ET for a special edition of the Kaffeepause following the Munich Security Conference with the Political Editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius. Stefan Kornelius is the Political Editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Previously, he served as Foreign Editor of the paper for nearly 20 years. In his reporting career, he has covered Germany’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the chancellorship of Helmut Kohl, and defense issues in Europe. He served as Berlin Bureau Chief, and from 1996 to 1999 he was the paper’s Washington correspondent. Prior to that, he was a correspondent in Bonn.
His biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, entitled Angela Merkel, the Chancellor and her World, has been translated into 13 languages. Mr. Kornelius is a graduate of the Henri-Nannen-Journalistenschule and studied in Bonn and at the London School of Economics.

Superwahljahr 2024: Wie bereitet sich die Sicherheitscommunity auf die globalen Wahlen vor?
2024-02-20 18:00
Zum 60. Mal kommen bei der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz hunderte Entscheidungsträger:innen, Meinungsführer:innen und hochrangige Politiker:innen zusammen. Seit dem Terrorangriff der Hamas am 7. Oktober 2023 eskaliert die Lage in Nahost, die Ukraine kämpft weiter um ihre Freiheit und die Wahlen in den USA könnten sie internationale Sicherheitsarchitektur zusätzlich erschüttern. Was lässt sich daraus für die deutsche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik ableiten? Und wie gut ist Europa auf einen Wechsel im Weißen Haus vorbereitet?
Darüber möchten wir nach der MSC mit
Dr. Jana Puglierin und Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook diskutieren.
Diese Einladung richtet sich an Mitglieder des American Council on Germany und der Freunde American Council on Germany e.V. sowie an Alumni des Young Leaders Conference und andere Programme des ACG. Wir freuen uns, wenn Ihr eine weitere Person mitbringt, die an einer Förderung der transatlantischen Beziehungen interessiert ist.
Wir bitten um Anmeldung bis zum 16.2.204.

Reflections on German-American Relations in an Election Year
2024-02-22 17:00 - 19:00
On February 22, the ACG and the Pittsburgh Committee on Foreign Relations will host a discussion and reception with David Gill, Consul General of Germany in New York.
David Gill has been the German Consul General in New York since August 20217. He grew up in a protestant minister’s family in Herrnhut, Saxony, in former East Germany. He was denied a higher education by the communist regime for political reasons. Instead, he trained and worked as a plumber before joining a preparatory protestant school and later the theological seminary of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg.
In 1990, Mr. Gill initially was the chairman of Normannenstrasse Citizens’ Committee which oversaw the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security at the Stasi headquarters and served as the secretary of the Special Committee for the dissolution of the Stasi of the East German Parliament. After reunification, he became spokesman and head of the research division of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi-Files before studying law in Berlin and Philadelphia. After holding positions in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and at the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Berlin, he served as the Deputy Representative of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union. During Federal President Joachim Gauck’s term from 2012–2017, Mr. Gill served as State Secretary and Chief of Staff of the President.

Discussion and Reception

Supervisory Priorities for the European Central Bank in 2024
2024-02-26 12:00 - 13:30
On February 26, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner, Head of Division in the Banking Supervisory Arm of the European Central Bank.
Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner works as a Head of Division in the banking supervisory arm of the European Central Bank. He is responsible for supervising the French banks and Commerzbank. In this function, he also leads the Country Coordination Team France and is a member of a Task Force of the Basel Committee on Counterparty Credit Risk.
Before joining the ECB, Dr. Gstaedtner worked for ten years at Deutsche Bank in London, where he held several managerial positions. In his last function at Deutsche Bank, he was the Head of Legal/Regulatory Change Management and was in charge of implementing regulatory changes in Deutsche Bank’s operations. Dr. Gstaedtner started his career at an Asset Management company in Munich as the Head of Legal, Tax, and HR. He is the founder and President of the European Banking Institute (EBI), which is based in Frankfurt. The EBI is a pan-European joint venture for research and policy advice in the area of banking, banking regulation, and banking supervision. Dr. Gstaedtner studied Law in Munich, Saarbrucken, and London and is a qualified lawyer in Germany (Rechtsanwalt) and in England/Wales (solicitor).

Europe's New AI Act: What does it mean for Europe and the U.S.?
2024-02-29 08:00 - 09:30
On February 29, the American Council on Germany and the American Business Forum on Europe will host a breakfast briefing with Oliver Süme, Partner at Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association, eco.

The European Parliament just passed the AI Act, which forms the world’s first legal framework for artificial intelligence and also applies to U.S. providers if they offer AI systems in the European Union. What exactly does the AI Act regulate? What impact is it expected to have on providers and users in the United States and Europe, and what consequences does the new European legal framework have for investments and transactions in the tech sector?

Oliver Süme is a Partner at the European law firm Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association. He advises his clients on all legal issues in the areas of IT and digitalization, in particular, IT contract law, data protection law, and legal issues relating to IT security and e-commerce. In addition, he advises companies from a wide range of industries in connection with digitalization processes and the use of new technologies such as blockchain, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and the establishment of data spaces. Mr. Süme is also Chair of the Board of eco – Association of the Internet Industry and heads the data protection working group of EuroISPA, the European umbrella organization of internet service providers.

Dealing with Disinformation: How Influential are Conspiracy Narratives?
2024-02-29 11:00 - 12:00
Around the world, the rise of populist movements is contributing to the spread of conspiracy narratives. Social media platforms and messengers provide a fertile ground for conspiracy narratives that mobilize people, reinforce anti-Semitic and anti-pluralist thinking, and also destabilize and divide societies. In a time of fake truth and alternative facts, how much impact do such narratives have – and what can be done to correct them?
Join the American Council on Germany and the German Consulate General New York for the next installment of the virtual series “Dealing with Disinformation”. NPR journalist Shannon Bond and Pia Lamberty, Managing Director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy gGmbH, will join us on Thursday, February 29, at 11:00 AM ET to discuss the challenge of conspiracy narratives and share ideas for countermeasures. Shannon Bond is a correspondent at NPR who reports on the impact of misleading narratives and false claims on society and democracy. She formerly covered technology for NPR’s Business Desk, where she focused on the major players in Silicon Valley and how they change our daily lives, as well as the way we work and communicate.
Ms. Bond spent 11 years as a reporter and editor at the Financial Times in New York and San Francisco. She co-hosted the award-winning FT podcast “Alphachat” which focuses on business and economics. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and religion from Columbia University.
Pia Lamberty is a psychologist who conducts research on conspiracy ideologies. As the Managing Director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy gGmbH, which she co-founded in 2021, she is at the nexus of science and society and provides evidence-based information on conspiracy narratives, disinformation, anti-Semitism, and right-wing extremism. The non-profit organization addresses current developments in the above-mentioned fields and advises decision-makers from civil society, media, and politics.
Together with Katharina Nocun, Ms. Lamberty published the bestselling non-fiction book “Fake Facts – Wie Verschwörungstheorien unser Denken bestimmen” (“Fake Facts – How Conspiracy Theories Influence Our Thinking”) in 2020. Afterwards they published “True Facts – Was gegen Verschwörungserzählungen wirklich hilft” (“True Facts – What Really Helps to Counter Conspiracy Narratives”) followed by “Gefährlicher Glaube – Die radikale Gedankenwelt der Esoterik” (“Dangerous Beliefs – The Radical World of Esoteric Thought”).

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-03-04 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, March 4 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Journalist Miriam Hollstein, Chief Reporter for Stern in Berlin and 2008 ACG McCloy Fellow. Miriam Hollstein serves as the Chief Reporter for Stern in Berlin. Prior to this position, she served as the Chief Reporter for t-online in Berlin from February 2022 until September 2023 and the Chief Political Reporter for FUNKE Zentralredaktion from November 2020 to December 2021. She wrote for the Berliner Zeitung while still a student and worked as an editor for Internationale Politik. She worked as a foreign reporter for the Welt am Sonntag and, from 2006 to 2014, was a WELT-Gruppe’s domestic policy editor and reporter. From 2015 to 2020, she worked for the Bild am Sonntag, first as a domestic policy and then from 2018 as chief reporter of politics. Her reporting brought her into regular contact with the office of the German Chancellor. She has been in her role at Stern since September 2023.
In 2009, she published the first graphic biography of Angela Merkel, entitled “Miss Tschörmanie,” together with illustrator Heiko Sakurai. She appears regularly on the German news program “Phoenix,” where she speaks on political and societal issues. She regularly travels internationally for reporting assignments. In addition, she was a 2005 Marshall Memorial Fellow, a 2008 ACG McCloy Fellow, and was recognized in 2015 by the DEFA Stiftung (German Film Corporation Foundation) for her contribution to preserving German film heritage.

Systemic Rivalry, Strategic Competition, and the International Order: Russia, China, and the West
2024-03-04 11:00 - 12:00
In the early 1990s, many people believed that with the end of the Cold War liberal democracies had triumphed over authoritarian regimes. In the early 2020s – some 30 years later – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concerns over China’s possible invasion of Taiwan, and growing rivalry between China and the United States are stark reminders that we live in a new era of great-power competition – and that the post-Cold War international order cannot be taken for granted. Today, the international order is being redefined in light of the systemic rivalry and strategic competition between Russia, China, and the West.
Join the American Council on Germany and the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation for a discussion about great-power competition with Prof. Dr. Gerlinde Groitl, Associate Professor of International Politics and Transatlantic Relations at the University of Regensburg, and author of “Russia, China and the Revisionist Assault on the Western Liberal International Order” (2023). Prof. Dr. Gerlinde Groitl serves as Associate Professor of International Politics and Transatlantic Relations at the University of Regensburg, Germany. Her research focuses on U.S., German and European foreign and security policy, transatlantic relations as well as the great-power competition between Russia, China and the West in a changing global order. Her publications includes regular articles on these themes as well as monographs on the American Christian Right’s global human rights activism (2007), on U.S. civil-military relations in post-Cold War military interventions (2015), and her recent book titled “Russia, China and the Revisionist Assault on the Western Liberal International Order” (2023).
Over the past few years her research and teaching activities have taken her to Washington, DC, London, Florence, and Brno. Committed to policy-relevant scholarship and cross-professional exchange, Prof. Dr. Groitl is an alumna of the German-American Manfred-Woerner-Seminar, the BMW and Mercator Foundation’s German-Chinese Zukunftsbrücke program, as well as the “Young Leaders in Security Policy” of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin.

Navigating Immigration Challenges in the U.S. and Germany
2024-03-06 11:00 - 12:00
While global challenges are addressed by national governments, increasingly subnational actors such as states, communities, and cities have needed to step up to take action when traditional nation-states have not been able to make progress due to political polarization and partisan gridlock. The German-American State Legislator Dialogue will take on the challenge of immigration, focusing on the role of state representatives from the United States and Germany in addressing common concerns when it comes to migration.
Immigration has deeply influenced the development of both the United States and Germany historically and today. Recent crises, such as the wave of refugees after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, have posed multifaceted challenges in providing immediate necessities and integrating migrants in the long term. Challenges to economic integration and social inclusion persist, including language barriers and recognition of foreign qualifications. Though immigration policy falls under federal jurisdiction, the role of U.S. states and German Länder in successful integration is crucial. State governments can aid integration by providing accessible resources for housing, language education, vocational training, and cultural programs. Recent public debates between the federal government and the Bundesländer over how to limit the influx of migrants and distribute costs for refugees have dominated the headlines. Many U.S. states have outlined the need for additional support to manage a surge of asylum seekers as some states are subject to a greater influx of migrants than others. In this discussion with state legislators on both sides of the Atlantic, we examine the impacts of immigration challenges at the state level and how collaborative efforts across different levels of government and stakeholders can best address these hurdles in light of current affairs.
Join the American Council on Germany and the Aspen Institute Germany for our next State-to-State: German-American State Legislator Dialogue for a discussion with German and American state legislators including Franziska Baum (FDP), State Parliament of the Free State of Thuringia; and Senator Brian Fernandez (D), Arizona State Senate. Franziska Baum (FDP) was born 1982 in Erfurt/Thuringia and graduated from the Landesschule Pforta in 2000. After studying information and communication management in Berlin, she worked several years in marketing roles in the public sector in Oranienburg/Brandenburg. From 2008 to 2013, Ms. Baum lived in London (UK), where she worked first for the Diocese of Westminster and later for the European Medicines Agency in financial management. Back in her home state of Thuringia, she supervised various projects on a part-time, freelance, or voluntary basis, as there was a start-up fair and a mentoring project that focused on connecting founders with experienced entrepreneurs.
In 2019, she accepted the mandate as a member of the parliamentary group of the Liberals (FDP). Her main topics are education, youth, sports, migration, justice, and accessibility. Promoting the youth, a sustainable education system, sensible digitization concepts, and modern mobility are particularly close to her heart. She is deputy district chairwoman of the Free Democrats in Erfurt, a member of the board of the Thuringian Youth Hostel Association, a member of the board of the Bürgerstifung Erfurt, and a member of the board of trustees of the school foundation of the Erfurt diocese.
Brian Fernandez (D) is an Arizona native elected to represent Legislative District 23 in the Arizona State Senate. Legislative District 23 covers most of Arizona’s border with Mexico and is a major international logistics throughway with a robust agricultural industry. Before being elected to the State Senate, Senator Fernandez served as State Representative, where he secured millions of dollars for rural infrastructure projects to include: $20 million to expand Jack Rabbit Trail in the West Valley, and $34 million to build and improve Cesar Chavez Blvd in San Luis AZ. He also funded education voting for the historic 1-billion-dollar education budget and secured over 5 million dollars for rural undergraduate programs. Brian is now serving on the Appropriations, Finance and Commerce, and Natural Resources, Energy, and Water committee. Senator Fernandez has spent his career creating solutions for co

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-03-18 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, March 18 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Erika Solomon, Berlin Correspondent for the New York Times. Erika Solomon has been a Berlin Correspondent for The New York Times since April 2022. Prior to that, she served as a correspondent for The Financial Times, reporting from the Middle East and then Germany. Ms. Solomon spent over a decade reporting from the Middle East – first for Reuters and then the FT – covering the Arab Spring and its aftermath, from the street protests in Yemen and Bahrain to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In 2019, she moved to Germany where she covered migration in Europe as well as the German federal elections in 2021.
Ms. Solomon earned a degree in History and Literature from Harvard University in 2008. She then moved to Damascus on an Arabic fellowship before pivoting to journalism. She speaks Arabic, German, and Spanish. She also once was a competitive horse rider and loves to bake cakes.

Superwahljahr 2024: What to Watch Following Russia’s Presidential "Election"
2024-03-20 11:00 - 12:00
There is a sense of inevitability regarding the outcome of Russia’s looming presidential election: Vladimir Putin is poised to win a fifth term as President, which will allow him to remain in power until at least 2030. Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, he appears to have just as strong a grip on Russia as at any time over the past 24 years. Any opposition figures who could have challenged him have been imprisoned or exiled abroad. Independent media outlets that could show criticism of Putin’s policies have been blocked. Some analysts have argued that the 2024 Russian presidential “election” is more heavily manipulated than any other election in Russia’s post-Soviet history and that the death of Alexei Navalny has intensified the atmosphere of fear in which the vote is taking place.
Although the Kremlin maintains rigid control over the political system and the electoral process in a country of nearly 150 million, the election is the largest public test of the Russian state’s ability to shape its desired result at home since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion about the political landscape in Russia with Dr. Sabine Fischer, Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Studies (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin, and Dr. Angela Stent (1982 Young Leader), Senior Adviser to the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University, where she is also Professor Emerita of Government and Foreign Service. Dr. Sabine Fischer is a Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Studies (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin. Her research focuses on Russian foreign policy and domestic politics, EU-Russia relations, EU policy towards Russia/the EU’s eastern neighborhood, and unresolved conflicts in the region.
From 2019 to 2021, Dr. Fischer worked in Moscow as a Team Leader of the Public Diplomacy. EU and Russia project. Previously, Dr. Fischer was the Head of the Eastern Europe and Eurasia Research Division at SWP (2012-2018) and a Senior Research Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris (2007-2012). At the EUISS she was responsible for research and policy on Russia and Eurasia for the EU institutions. Before that, she worked at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. She holds a PhD from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.
Dr. Angela Stent (1982 ACG Young Leader) is Senior Adviser to the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University, where she is also Professor Emerita of Government and Foreign Service. She is also a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs its Hewett Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. From 2004 to 2006, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State.
Dr. Stent’s publications include: “From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1955-1980” (Cambridge University Press, 1981); “Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, The Soviet Collapse and The New Europe” (Princeton University Press, 1999); “The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century” (Princeton University Press, 2014), for which she won the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Douglas Dillon prize for the best book on the practice of American Diplomacy. Her most recent book is “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest” (Twelve Books, 2019) for which she won the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s prize for the best book on U.S-Russian Relations.
She was a member of the senior advisory panel for NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe for Admiral James Stavridis and General Philip Breedlove. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a contributing editor to Survival and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cold War Studies, World Policy Journal, Internationale Politik, and Mirovaia Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnie Otnosheniie. She has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Russia and Central Asia. She was a trustee of the Eurasia Foundation. Dr. Stent received her bachelor’s from Cambridge University, her Master of Science with distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her master’s and doctorate from Harvard University.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-03-25 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, March 25 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with ACG Young Leader Alumna Dana Heide, Correspondent for Handelsblatt. Dana Heide (2018 ACG Young Leader) has been a Berlin-based correspondent for the Handelsblatt since the summer of 2022 and currently covers the German Foreign Office and international politics, with a special focus on German-Chinese relations. Ms. Heide served as the paper’s China Correspondent from 2019 to 2022. She joined the Handelsblatt in 2011 and previously reported from Berlin from 2015 to 2019.
Ms. Heide studied Economics in Bremen and attended the Georg von Holtzbrinck School of Journalism. She worked as a freelance correspondent in San Sebastián, Spain. In 2016, she was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow at The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco.

U.S.-German Relations in a Multipolar World
2024-03-25 17:30 - 19:00
The ACG’s Nashville Warburg Chapter and the Tennessee World Affairs Council will host a discussion and reception with Michael Georg Link, Coordinator for Transatlantic Cooperation at the German Federal Foreign Ministry and Member of the German Bundestag (FDP).
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org
Michael Georg Link is a member of the German Bundestag, where he represents the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and his home electoral district, Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg. He is the Spokesperson on Europe of the FDP Parliamentary Group, and since March 2022, he has been the Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office. In addition, Mr. Link is a member of the party council of the European Liberals (ALDE) and a member of the FDP national executive board in his capacity as party Treasurer. He is a member of the Heilbronn City Council and also the Chairperson of the FDP association in that city. From January 2012 to December 2013, he was Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Franco-German Cooperation. In particular, he was responsible for relations with the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and NATO, as well as bilateral relations with the United States and Canada. After his military service, Mr. Link studied Russian and French at the universities of Augsburg, Lausanne, and Heidelberg.

Germany’s Energy Policy: A Mid-Term Report Card and an Outlook for the Remaining 18 Months
2024-03-28 12:30 - 14:00
On March 28, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Executive Director/CEO of the Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (Environmental Action Germany).
Please email events@acgusa.org for more information.
Sascha Müller-Kraenner has served as Executive Director/CEO of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V., DUH (Environmental Action Germany) since January 2015. Environmental Action Germany is an independent non-profit organization founded in 1975 that focuses on environmental and consumer protection. It is a leading environmental and consumer advocacy organization that works mostly at the German state, national, and European levels.
Mr. Müller-Kraenner is also a founding partner and board member of Ecologic Institute, a non-profit applied environmental policy research institute with offices in Berlin, Brussels, and Washington, DC. Between 2007 and 2014, he held various positions with The Nature Conservancy, 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.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-04-02 11:00 - 12:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Tuesday, April 2 at 11:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Paul-Anton Krüger, Parliamentary Correspondent in the Berlin Bureau of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Paul-Anton Krüger has been the Parliamentary Correspondent in the Berlin Bureau of the Süddeutsche Zeitung since the 2021 federal election. Previously he reported on political affairs and served as Deputy Head of the Foreign Policy Department, focusing on the Middle East and international security for three years. Before that, he spent four years in Cairo and was a correspondent covering large parts of the Arab world and Iran.
After graduating from the Alte Landesschule in Korbach, he studied journalism in Berlin and Munich. In August 2005, he joined the Süddeutsche Zeitung as a volunteer, worked as an editor from 2008, and as head of the foreign policy department from 2011. In the fall of 2007, Mr. Krüger was a guest editor at the Chicago Tribune as part of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, the German-American journalism scholarship of the International Journalism Programs e.V.

Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022 WorldNow Discussion with Frank Trentmann
2024-04-02 19:00 - 21:00
How can a nation reinvent itself? Author Frank Trentmann will join us on April 2 to tell the story of how the German people were able to rebuild after World War II and redefine their place in the world – and what we can learn from this narrative today. The discussion will be moderated by Jim Falk, the host of WorldNow and President Emeritus of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth.
The American Council on Germany is partnering with WorldNow, which is hosted by the World Affairs Council of Connecticut and Global Santa Fe for this virtual conversation. The event is presented in partnership with the World Affairs Council of Albuquerque, the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville, WorldOregon, the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth, the World Affairs Council of Greater Houston, the World Affairs Council of Hampton Roads, and the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations.
Order a copy of Out of the Darkness by Frank Trentmann here. Frank Trentmann is a Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation and has been awarded the Whitfield Prize, a Moore Distinguished Fellowship at Caltech, the Austrian Science Book Prize, the Humboldt Prize for Research, and, in 2023, the Bochum Historians’ Prize. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has taught at Princeton University. He grew up in Hamburg and lives in London.
Jim Falk (moderator) is President Emeritus of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth and serves on the Board of Global Santa Fe. He co-hosts Perspectives Matter, a McCuistion Program that airs weekly on KERA-Dallas (PBS). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Tale of Two Economies: America’s Boom and Germany’s Bust
2024-04-03 12:30 - 14:00
On April 3, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Simon Book, U.S. Correspondent for DER SPIEGEL.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Simon Book studied at the University of Passau and was trained at the German School of Journalism in Munich. From 2011 he served as an editor at the Financial Times Deutschland and from 2013 on as a reporter at Germany’s business daily Handelsblatt. In 2016, he joined the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. Since 2020, Mr. Book is with Germany’s leading weekly magazine and news outlet DER SPIEGEL. Initially, he wrote for the economics desk in Berlin, and in October 2023 he took over as DER SPIEGEL‘s business correspondent in the United States.
In 2016, he received a Kellen Fellowship from the American Council on Germany, during which time he researched transatlantic trade policy. He lives with his wife and his three children in Berkeley, California.

Making the Case for Supporting Ukraine at Home and Abroad
2024-04-04 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Omid Nouripour, Co-Chair of Alliance 90/The Green Party and Member of the Bundestag.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org
Omid Nouripour joined the Green Party in 1996 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2006, representing the Frankfurt/Main II district. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Finance Committee, and the Defense Committee. In addition to these committees, he acted as the chairman of the German-Ukrainian Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2018-2021. Since February 2022, Mr. Nouripour has been Co-chair of Alliance 90/The Greens. Prior to that he served as the foreign policy spokesperson for the party from 2013 to 2021. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Nouripour was a member of the national executive committee of Alliance 90/The Greens from 2002 to 2006.
Mr. Nouripour came to Frankfurt/Main from Tehran, Iran with his family at the age of thirteen. From 1996 to 2004, he attended the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where he studied an array of fields, including German, political science, law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. He is a board member of Atlantik-Brücke e.V., a member of the Advisory Council of the Berghof Foundation, and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Foreign Correspondent: Dream or Nightmare? The Concept of Freedom in the United States and Germany
2024-04-04 18:00 - 20:00
The American Council on Germany and the Goethe-Institut invite you to a series of discussions throughout the United States highlighting how German and American journalists based in the United States currently see political and social developments in Germany, the United States, and internationally.
Please join us on April 4, for our first event in the series. No other concept is more closely associated with the American self-image than that of freedom – be it liberation from former colonial masters, individual or economic freedom, freedom of speech, or religious freedom. However, the strong emphasis on the idea of freedom as well as the diversity of its forms of expression has led to internal tensions.
Over the course of the series, our speakers will address a range of topics that affect citizens in both countries. What strikes them most about current trends in Germany and the United States and the political discourse? What surprises them? In which direction(s) is the United States developing? What impact does this have on Germany – and the future of the transatlantic partnership?
Following the in-person gatherings, the discussions will be released as podcasts — and available wherever you find podcasts. Susan B. Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes a weekly column on life in Washington. Ms. Glasser has served as the top editor of several Washington publications, including Politico, where she founded the award-winning Politico Magazine, and Foreign Policy, which won three National Magazine Awards, among other honors, during her tenure as editor-in-chief. Before that, she worked for a decade at the Washington Post, where she was the editor of Outlook and national news. She also oversaw coverage of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, served as a reporter covering the intersection of money and politics, spent four years as the Post’s Moscow co-bureau chief, and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She edited Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, early in her career.
Her books include “Kremlin Rising,” “The Man Who Ran Washington,” and, most recently, “The Divider,” a best-selling history of Donald Trump in the White House, which she co-wrote with her husband, Peter Baker.
Julian Heißler, born in 1983, has worked as the U.S. correspondent for WirtschaftsWoche in Washington DC since 2018. Prior to that, he spent several years in Berlin writing about German federal politics for various media outlets. He studied Communication Studies, Political Science, and Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin and completed the master’s program in Journalism at the Hamburg Media School. He also reported from countries such as China, Israel, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Finland. His book “Dream and Nightmare: America and the Many Faces of Freedom” was published in German in October 2023.
Dr. Steven E. Sokol (moderator) has been the President and CEO of the American Council on Germany since 2015. He served as President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh from 2010 until 2015. Prior to that, he was the Vice President and Director of Programs at the American Council on Germany for nearly eight years. Dr. Sokol has served as the Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, was the Head of the Project Management Department at the Bonn International Center for Conversion GmbH (BICC), and was a Program Officer in the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Making the Case for Supporting Ukraine at Home and Abroad
2024-04-08 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG will host a discussion and reception in Washington, DC with Omid Nouripour, Co-Chair of the Greens and Member of the Bundestag.
Omid Nouripour joined the Green Party in 1996 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2006, representing the Frankfurt/Main II district. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Finance Committee, and the Defense Committee. In addition to these committees, he was chairman of the German-Ukrainian Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2018-2021. Since February 2022, Mr. Nouripour has been Co-chair of Alliance 90/The Greens. Prior to that he served as the foreign policy spokesperson for the party from 2013 to 2021. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Nouripour was a member of the national executive committee of Alliance 90/The Greens from 2002 to 2006.
Mr. Nouripour came to Frankfurt/Main from Tehran, Iran with his family at the age of thirteen. From 1996 to 2004, he attended the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where he studied an array of fields, including German, political science, law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. He is a board member of Atlantik-Brücke e.V., a member of the Advisory Council of the Berghof Foundation, and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Superwahljahr 2024: After Turkey’s Regional Elections, Opposition Parties are Gaining Ground
2024-04-09 11:00 - 12:00
Over the weekend, voters in Turkey participated in nationwide local elections. With more than 90 percent of ballots counted by early Monday, the opposition appears to have made significant gains against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party. Based on preliminary vote counts, the opposition maintained power in four of the country’s largest cities — Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya — and took control of a fifth, Bursa, and a number of smaller cities. Official results are expected from the Supreme Election Council in the coming days.
The shift away from Erdogan has been driven by voter resentment about inflation and the economy. A strong showing of support for Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has solidified his position as the main opposition candidate and might reinvigorate the anti-Erdogan opposition. Many Turks believe Imamoglu is a potential contender in the next presidential election – which is expected in 2028, when he could face off against Mr. Erdogan.
Join us on Tuesday, April 9, for a virtual discussion with Turkey expert Dr. Sinem Adar from the Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)) and FAZ correspondent Friederike Böge. We’ll discuss the stunning election results and what they mean for the country. Dr. Sinem Adar is with the Center for Applied Turkey Studies of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). She focuses on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy and EU-Turkey relations. Before joining SWP, Dr. Adar was an Einstein Fellow at Humboldt University. She holds a Doctorate degree in Sociology from Brown University and a Master’s Degree in Development Studies from the London School of Economics.
Friederike Böge has been writing for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung since 2013. From 2017 until March 2023, she served as the paper’s correspondent for China and North Korea. Since April 2023, she has been based in Ankara and reports on Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. She began her career in journalism as a trainee at the FAZ and then worked at Reuters and the Financial Times Deutschland. From 2004 to 2007, she worked in Afghanistan for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the German Development Agency. Ms. Böge studied Ethnology, African Studies, and Political Science in Berlin and Cape Town.

Superwahljahr 2024: Rigged for the Autocrat: Why do Authoritarian Regimes Hold Elections?
2024-04-11 11:00 - 12:00
More than 60 countries, reflecting half of the world’s population, are heading to the polls to vote in presidential, legislative, and local elections in 2024. However, many of these countries confront serious authoritarian threats that extend beyond the candidates on the ballot and will impact the values, processes, and institutions that are critical to democracies and the free world.
Authoritarian regimes engaging in electoral interference, such as China, Russia, and Iran, seek to win from electoral mayhem and democracies’ decline. If democracy does not prevail, the years to come will be influenced by authoritarian forces. China continues to expand its global economic dominance through the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) and tensions between Taiwan and China are at an all-time high. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on as the threat of nuclear war looms. Iran threatens regional instability through the funding of local proxies, militias, and terrorist groups in neighboring countries. More broadly, intimidation tactics, voter suppression, and the marginalization of certain groups violate democratic participation and inclusion. Democratic systems are under strain and there are a number of forces at play.
Join the American Council on Germany for the next event in the virtual series Superwahljahr 2024. This time, we’ll talk with regional experts Cathryn Grothe from Freedom House and Dr. Stefan Meister from the German Council on Foreign Relations about why authoritarian regimes even bother to hold elections at all. Cathryn Grothe is a Research Analyst covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for Freedom House, where she contributes to Freedom in the World, Freedom on the Net, and Election Watch for the Digital Age. Her research focuses on technology, democracy, and human rights in the MENA region. Ms. Grothe’s writing has been published in various regional and international outlets.
Prior to joining Freedom House, Ms. Grothe worked at Women Deliver on issues related to humanitarian advocacy, gender-based violence, and refugee rights. She has extensive experience working with civil society organizations in Lebanon on gender equality programming.
She holds an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in political science and public health from New York University.
Dr. Stefan Meister has been the head of the German Council on Foreign Relations’ Program on International Order and Democracy since August 2021. From 2019 until then, he worked as director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s South Caucasus Office.
From 2017 to 2019, Dr. Meister was head of the Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia at DGAP, where he had previously headed its program for Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. Before that, he was a senior policy fellow in the Wider Europe Team at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Berlin and London. In the 2015/16 term, Dr. Meister was a visiting fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, DC, where he wrote on Russian disinformation and propaganda. He has served as an election observer for the OSCE in post-Soviet countries several times and worked on conflict transformation and institution-building in post-Soviet countries.
Dr. Meister is co-author of Geopolitics and Security: A New Strategy for the South Caucasus (KAS/DGAP/GIP, 2018), The Russia File (Brookings, 2018), Eastern Voices (Center for Transatlantic Relations/DGAP, 2017), and The Eastern Question (Brookings, 2016).
He studied international relations and East European history in Jena, Leipzig, and Nizhni Novgorod and holds a Ph.D. from Friedrich Schiller University in Jena with a thesis on the transformation of the Russian higher education and research system.

German-American Conference
2024-04-15 08:00 - 2024-04-16 17:00
The American Council on Germany and Atlantik-Brücke will host the annual German-American Conference on April 15 and 16, 2024 in Washington, DC.
More information to follow.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-04-15 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, April 15 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Political Correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung Jochen Buchsteiner. Jochen Buchsteiner has been Political Correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung in Berlin since 2023. Prior to that, he spent 20 years as the FAZ’s foreign correspondent in New Delhi, Jakarta, and London.
After studying Political Science and Rhetoric in Berlin and Tübingen, he began his career in journalism at the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. From 1993 until 2001, he was foreign policy editor and parliamentary correspondent in Hamburg, Bonn, and Berlin for Die Zeit. He is the author of two books: „Die Stunde der Asiaten“ (2005) and „Die Flucht der Briten aus der europäischen Utopie“ (2018).

Young Leader Alumni Reception
2024-04-16 18:30 - 20:30
On April 16, the ACG, Atlantik-Bruecke, and Axel Dittmann, Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Washington will host a Young Leaders Alumni Reception. This event is timed to coincide with the annual German-American Conference.

Dealing with Disinformation: Lessons from the Past for the Digital Age
2024-04-18 11:00 - 12:00
Propaganda and fake news are nothing new. They have been forms of communication since Roman times. The invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1493 dramatically amplified the dissemination of disinformation. Sensational stories have always sold well, and in the early 19th century, when the modern newspaper appeared on the scene, scoops and exposés were all the rage – but fake stories also helped boost circulation. With the advent of radio and then television, it became possible to transmit false narratives more widely. The arrival of the internet in the late 20th century, followed by social media in the 21st century dramatically increased the risks of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. In its modern form, disinformation is very different from its historical precursors: It can spread at a velocity and magnitude that was previously unimaginable.
Join the American Council on Germany and the German Consulate General New York on Thursday, April 18, at 11 am ET for the next installment of the virtual series “Dealing with Disinformation.” Experts Dr. Walter J. Scheirer (author of A History of Fake Things on the Internet) and Dr. Heidi Tworek (author of News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945) will join us to talk about the history of disinformation, the role of technology in its spread, and the future of fake news.

Dr. Walter J. Scheirer is the Dennis O. Doughty Collegiate Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and the author of A History of Fake Things on the Internet. He is a computer scientist by training who also studied international relations. An expert in machine learning and recognition in his book, Dr. Scheirer breaks down the technical advances that made new developments in digital deception possible and shares behind-the-screens details of early Internet-era pranks that have become touchstones of hacker lore.
Dr. Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She is an award-winning researcher of media, history, health communications, international organizations, and platform governance. She directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at UBC. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She co-edits the Journal of Global History. Her most recent book is News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945.

Annual Meeting of Members
2024-04-18 18:00 - 20:00
On April 18, 2024, the ACG will hold the Annual Meeting of the Members.
More information to follow.
