American Council On Germany

Supervisory Priorities for the European Central Bank in 2024
2024-02-26 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
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.

Going Too Far? Tolerance, Wokeness, and the Trouble with it All
2024-04-25 18:00 - 20:00
On April 25, the ACG and the Goethe-Institut Washington, DC will host a discussion and reception with René Pfister, U.S. Correspondent for Der Spiegel, Charles Lane, Deputy Opinion Editor and Columnist at The Washington Post, and moderated by Dr. Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project.
To register, please click here
Join the American Council on Germany and the Goethe-Institut in Washington DC on April 25th for the second in our series Foreign Correspondent Unplugged, which delves into current political debates on both sides of the Atlantic. At this event, we will explore issues around political correctness and threats to freedom of speech. The discussion will examine how current ideological norms are increasingly influencing freedom of expression in the Western world, particularly in Europe and the USA. As we approach the European parliamentary elections in June and the U.S. presidential election in November, understanding the nuances and impacts of the ideological shifts on freedom of speech is increasingly critical.

René Pfister studied Political Science and attended the German School of Journalism in Munich. He was a reporter at the news agencies ddp and Reuters in Berlin. In 2004, he began working for DER SPIEGEL’s Berlin office, which he headed for several years. Since mid-2019, he has been DER SPIEGEL’s Bureau Chief in Washington, D.C. His best-selling book, Ein Falsches Wort – “One Wrong Word: How a New Left-Wing Ideology from America Threatens Our Freedom of Expression” – was published in 2022.

Charles Lane is Deputy Opinion Editor of The Washington Post and a Columnist for the paper’s op-ed page. A finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing, he also served as the Post’s Supreme Court correspondent between 2000 and 2007. A former editor of The New Republic, Mr. Lane has also worked as a writer and foreign correspondent for Newsweek, covering civil wars in the Balkans and Central America during the 1980s and 1990s. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio. He is the author of two works of history about post-Civil War America, “Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror” and “The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of Reconstruction.”

Dr. Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill (moderator) directs the Campus Free Expression Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). She works with senior college leaders to provide consultative assistance and expertise in approaches that will support a campus culture that is diverse, inclusive, and open to robust intellectual exchange. Prior to joining BPC, Dr. Merrill was the Executive Director of the Fund for Academic Renewal, a program of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Before leading ACTA’s Fund for Academic Renewal, Dr. Merrill served as ACTA’s vice president of development. Earlier in her career, she served on the faculties of St. John’s College (Annapolis), known for its Great Books curriculum, and the College of William & Mary. She has also taught at Duke University, the University of Calgary, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and in the college program at Maryland’s only prison for women. Dr. Merrill earned her BA (First Class Honours) from the University of Calgary and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University.

Demographic Megatrends and the Challenge of Aging Societies
2024-05-01 11:00 - 12:00
The American Council on Germany and the Global Coalition on Aging are launching a series of virtual events called “The Road to Silver Economy Forum,” which will take place in the run-up to the Forum itself on October 15 and 16 in Berlin. The series will focus on a range of issues building on the theme of this year’s Forum, which is titled “Leading the Future in an Aging World.”
During the Forum, we will investigate the challenges facing healthcare, finance, technology, transportation, and consumer businesses; what they can learn from one another; what countries must do to stay competitive in a rapidly aging and rapidly changing society; and how generations can work together to succeed as our workplace demographics shift. This virtual series will lay the foundation for the Forum by exploring what government, business, civil society, and academia can do to effectively respond to demographic trends; sustainably finance our healthcare and pension systems; prepare our workforce, optimize technology for the entire population, including older adults; and address other areas where we need innovative solutions to navigate the megatrend of aging.
The global population passed the milestone of eight billion people in November 2022 – with the jump from seven to eight billion taking only 12 years. However, this rapid population growth is not the greatest demographic challenge the world faces today. It is, rather, the aging of society. Globally, societies are aging at rapid and transformational rates and the number of older people is growing faster than the number of young people. Longer life expectancy and more old than young are twin pillars of this tectonic shift in demographics. Global aging reflects significant medical, social, and economic advancements over disease and illness, but it also presents societal challenges that require leadership from government and the private sector.
Join the American Council on Germany and the Global Coalition on Aging on May 1 at 11:00 AM ET / 5:00 PM CET for the first in a series of online webinars in the run up to Silver Economy Forum in Berlin. Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, and Prof. Dr. Andrea Maier, Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, will discuss the trends, challenges, and opportunities of the demographic megatrend that is our aging population. Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he researches and writes extensively on demographics and economic development generally and, more specifically on international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. Domestically, he focuses on poverty and social well-being. Dr. Eberstadt is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR).
His many books and monographs include “Poverty in China” (IDI, 1979); “The Tyranny of Numbers” (AEI Press, 1995); “The End of North Korea” (AEI Press, 1999); “The Poverty of the Poverty Rate” (AEI Press, 2008); and “Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis” (NBR, 2010). His latest book is “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis” (Templeton Press, 2016).
Dr. Eberstadt has a Ph.D in political economy and government, an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government, and an AB from Harvard University. He also holds a Master of Science from the London School of Economics. In 2012, Dr. Eberstadt was awarded the prestigious Bradley Prize.
Prof. Dr. Andrea Maier is a Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP). She graduated in Medicine (MD) in 2003 from the University of Lübeck (Germany), was registered in 2009 in The Netherlands as a Specialist in Internal Medicine-Geriatrics, and was appointed Full Professor of Gerontology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in 2013. She was the head of Geriatrics at the Vrije Universiteit Medical Center from 2012 to 2016. From 2016 to early 2021, Professor Maier served as Divisional Director of Medicine and Community Care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia, and Professor of Medicine and Aged Care at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Professor Maier’s research focuses on unraveling the mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases. During the last 10 years, she has conducted multiple international observational cohort studies and intervention trials and has published more than 350 peer-reviewed articles, achieving an H index of 63, spearheading the significant contributions of her highly acclaimed innovative, global, multidisciplinary @Age research group. She is a frequent guest on radio and television programs to disseminate aging research and an invited member of several international academic and health policy committees, including the WHO. She is the past president of The Australian and New Zealand Society for Sarcopenia and Frailty Research, the founding president of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, and serves as an elected Member of The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.

The Path Forward for the German-American Partnership in a Period of Crises
2024-05-02 12:00 - 14:00
The LA Warburg Chapter will host a discussion and luncheon with Peter Beyer, Member of the Bundestag (CDU) Peter Beyer has served in the German Bundestag since 2009.
After finishing his higher education entrance qualification in 1991, he completed his military service in Wuppertal. Beyer then studied law at the universities of Düsseldorf and Bonn. In 1999, he graduated from university and was admitted to the bar.
Mr. Beyer began his legal career as an associate attorney for the US-headquartered firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt (now Mayer Brown). He also worked with Brinks, Hofer, Gilson & Lione in Chicago, and Murchison & Cumming in Los Angeles. In 2000, he enrolled in a postgraduate legal studies program at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville and received a Master of Laws degree. Returning to Germany, Beyer practiced law at the BEYER Intellectual Property firm in Ratingen, where he became one of the country’s first officially certified intellectual property lawyers.
Mr. Beyer was directly elected in his constituency in the general elections in 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2021 to represent the citizens of Heiligenhaus, Ratingen, Velbert, and Wülfrath.
A committed Atlanticist for many years, Mr. Beyer stands out among Members of the German Bundestag and his party as one of the most committed advocates of a strong transatlantic relationship with the United States and Canada. He serves as parliamentary Special Rapporteur on Transatlantic Relations in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2018 to 2022. In April 2018, Beyer was appointed Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation of the Federal Government (2018-2022). Mr. Beyer has been the Foreign Affairs Committee’s main rapporteur on the Western Balkans for twelve years. In July 2022, he was elected spokesperson of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Committee of Inquiry on Afghanistan. He is one of the most experienced foreign and security policy experts in his parliamentary group.
He is an active member of Atlantik-Brücke in addition to numerous organizations in his district. Mr. Beyer serves also as Executive Vice-President of the German American Association and also of the Southeast Europe Association and as President of the Federal Assembly of Silesia in Germany.

Exiles and Democracy: 80 Years of the Council for a Democratic Germany
2024-05-02 16:00 - 18:00
On May 2, the American Council on Germany, the German Law Journal, the Robert Bosch Foundation Alumni Association, and Orte der Demokratiegeschichte will host a discussion and reception with Prof. Eckart Goebel, Chair of Comparative Literature and German Philology at the University of Tübingen, and Dr. Natalia Savelyeva, Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin and Future Russia Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
To register, please email mcdonaldj@wlu.edu by April 30.
In the spring of 1944, sensing that the tide of the war was turning, exiled German dissidents in the United States began discussions envisioning a new, democratic, post-war Germany. Meeting as the “Council for a Democratic Germany,” the group consisted of an impressive – and impressively diverse – collection of German intellectuals, artists, politicians, scholars, and civil servants. The respected theologian Paul Tillich chaired the Council, which was originally formed with support from Thomas Mann. Bertolt Brecht was a member of the founding committee. The Council issued its declaration on May 3, 1944, insisting that the “German problem” would require a European solution. The Council recognized that the defeat of Nazism and the eventual disarmament of Germany remained the immediate priority. Looking ahead to the hoped-for peace, the Council strongly opposed the dismemberment of a defeated and occupied Germany. It also opposed talk of deindustrializing Germany, which risked creating “economic conditions that would become hopelessly depressed in all countries of Europe.” The Council urged the establishment of a democratic government in Germany supported by rejuvenated civil society institutions and robust democratic education. After the Council issued its May Declaration, subcommittees produced policy reports on reconstruction and economic renewal, as well as reform of the press and media, cultural policy, health policy, education policy, administration, and legal culture.
Join us on May 2 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Council’s Declaration and reflect on its work.
Prof. Eckart Goebel, a University of Tübingen Philosopher and Cultural Critic, will discuss the Council, building off his study “Escape to Life”: German Intellectuals in New York: A Compendium on Exile after 1933 (2012). This includes an acknowledgment of two stark developments. On the one hand, the Council stirred political resentment and petty jealousy within the broader German exile community in the U.S. On the other hand, the Allies seemed to largely disregard the Council’s efforts. The event will also use the historical reflection on the Council to consider contemporary exiles’ work to promote democracy in their homelands. Dr. Natalia Savelyeva, a Russian Sociologist at the University of Wisconsin who writes extensively on the Russian war against Ukraine, will discuss her experiences of dissidence and the chances for impacting Russian politics, scholarship, and life in the United States.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-05-06 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, May 6 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Bojan Pancevski, Germany Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Bojan Pancevski is The Wall Street Journal’s Germany correspondent, covering all aspects of Europe’s largest economy and its influence on the rest of the continent and beyond. He also covers Europe at large across major themes.
Before joining the WSJ, he covered Europe for the Times and the Sunday Times of London from Brussels and Vienna, focusing on a wide range of subjects, including the war in eastern Ukraine, the 2015 migration crisis, the rise of the Islamic State in Europe, Russian meddling in Europe, and Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Superwahljahr 2024: Parsing the Electon in India
2024-05-08 11:00 - 12:00
From April 19 to June 1, general elections are being held in India to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha (the House of the People, India’s lower house) and the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi is running for a third consecutive term. This is the biggest election in history – and lasts 44 days in a country where approximately 970 million people are eligible to vote (out of a population of 1.4 billion), including some 18 million first-time voters.
India’s elections are massive in scale, involving hundreds of millions of voters spread across diverse geographical, cultural, and linguistic regions. The country’s vast population and diverse demographics make it a unique electoral challenge. With the election in full swing, Modi seems positioned to be reelected – but his campaign is divisive. Relatively low turnout so far has rattled his campaign, raising questions whether his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies can achieve the landslide victory predicted by opinion polls just one month ago.
Join the American Council on Germany for the next event in the virtual series Superwahljahr 2024. We’ll be joined by the Süddeutsche Zeitung South-East Asia Correspondent, David Pfeifer, who is in India covering the elections. David Pfeifer, born in 1970, is a correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Southeast Asia and lives in Bangkok. In the 1990s and 2000s, he was, among other things, chief of staff at Tempo magazine and head of the culture and digital department at Stern. He has written several non-fiction books and novels. He joined the Süddeutsche in 2014 to develop the new weekend edition. In 2020, he moved to Thailand and reports from 14 countries, from India to Indonesia.
