Episode 134: Europe’s Strategic Dependencies
Anna Sauerbrey
Die Zeit
Anna Sauerbrey has been the foreign editor at Die Zeit since 2022. She also regularly writes about Germany for international publication such as the New York Times and CNN Opinion and comments on current political events on German public radio and TV. Previously, she was deputy editor-in-chief at Der Tagesspiegel. She is particularly interested in transatlantic relations and frequently travels to the United States for reporting. Most recently, she was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at the Center for European Studies, Harvard.
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
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The dynamics of the transatlantic relationship are changing. As Europe faces the changing policies of the United States toward its alliances, Germany is investing in its armed forces at a historic rate and working to rebalance NATO’s burden-sharing. Die Zeit’s foreign editor Anna Sauerbrey joins this episode of The Zeitgeist to discuss how the Trump administration’s “America First” policies are reshaping the German and European approaches to security and economic policy and Germans’ evolving view of the country’s place in the world.
Host
Jeff Rathke, President, AGI
Guest
Anna Sauerbrey, Foreign Editor, Die Zeit
