With the Chancellor Candidates Selected, the Election Campaign Heats Up
Postwar German politics has been characterized by long periods of stability associated with dominant chancellors (Adenauer, Kohl, Merkel, Brandt/Schmidt) followed by a shorter period of upheaval and transition (Erhard/Kiesinger, Schröder), …
Episode 40: National Bellwethers for the German Federal Election?
The March 14 elections for state legislatures in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate kicked off an electoral marathon that will culminate in the September 26 German federal election, the …
Episode 39: Revitalizing Transatlantic Power
President Joe Biden has made rebuilding the transatlantic partnership a focus of his administration after four years of frosty relations between Europe and the United States. One of the most …
Germany’s Memory Culture and the Alternative for Germany
Issue Brief 62 For decades, the dominant narrative about the evolution of collective memory in the Federal Republic of Germany has been that after several decades of silence, evasion, and …
Episode 38: Lessons for Dealing with Right-Wing Extremism in the United States and Germany
Right-wing extremism has been on the rise around the world. The January 6, 2021 insurrection that attached the U.S. capital and the August 2020 protest in Berlin which breached the …
The 2021 Bundestag Election Year
One of the most consequential German elections in memory will take place on September 26, 2021, when a new Bundestag, a new coalition government, and a new chancellor will be …
On the Passing of a German Generation
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my “Nazi aunt” (actually a great aunt) as I called her. Born a century ago in 1920 in northern Bavaria, Leni was a …
The 2020 U.S. Elections: Initial Reactions
With the 2020 U.S. presidential election now called for Joe Biden, the world has witnessed the inner strength of a democratic system: the ability to self-correct, alter course, and peacefully …
America Votes: The 2020 Election
AGI ProjectLooking Back at German Reunification Thirty Years Later
Germans have long contrasted the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 with the much more sober formal reunification of East and West Germany in October 1990. The fall …
The Anticlimactic Opening of the Humboldt Forum
December will witness one of Germany’s (actually, Europe’s) biggest cultural events in at least a decade: the opening of a massive new museum and cultural complex in the heart of …