On this episode of the Zeitgeist, AGI President Jeff Rathke speaks with Dr. Norbert Röttgen, member of the German Bundestag (CDU) and Vice Chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke, about Germany’s efforts to support Ukraine’s defense against the ongoing Russian invasion. Is Chancellor Scholz’s insistence of a “lockstep-with-the-United-States” approach to weapons delivery a sign of Berlin’s transatlantic spirit or lingering resistance to expanding arms supply to Ukraine? Could Germany accelerate...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS looks back on the 40 years of the Institute’s work on strengthening the American-German relationship through academic research, policy dialogue, and exchanges. AICGS President Jeff Rathke is joined by Eric Langenbacher, Senior Fellow and Director of AICGS’ Society, Culture & Politics Program, and Frank Trommler, Professor Emeritus of German at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Trommler, who led the AICGS Humanities Program from 1995 to 2003,...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS president Jeff Rathke and Dr. Christine Arentz, Professor for Health Economics at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, discuss Germany’s public health system since the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the issue of rising demand for long-term care. How has the public discussion on health care changed since the pandemic? Is the German health care system adequately financed to handle pandemic-related health emergencies as well as other emerging...

Dan Mullaney, Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East, is our guest for this episode of The Zeitgeist. Together with AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, AICGS Vice President and Geoeconomics Program Director, they discuss the current trade policy agenda and the role of closer U.S.-EU cooperation in shaping a sustainable, future-oriented global trading system. Has recent experience with the covid-19 pandemic and increasing strategic competition...

On February 27, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made an historic speech to the German Bundestag, declaring a historic turning point (Zeitenwende) for Germany’s security and defense policy following Russia’s invasion in Ukraine days before. One year on, AICGS President Jeff Rathke and AICGS Non-Resident Senior Fellow Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger take stock of Germany’s support for Ukraine, the progress of re-investment in the armed forces, and Berlin’s partnership with its key allies in...

On this episode of the Zeitgeist, our guest is FDP Bundestag Caucus Leader Christian Dürr. He and AICGS President Jeff Rathke discuss how Germany has reset its energy policy, the future of trade in a global environment increasingly defined by strategic competition, and how Germany is addressing the threats to its security stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What lessons has Germany taken from its successful efforts to cut energy dependency on Russia and how might it help the...

On this episode of the Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke talks with Dr. Liana Fix, Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, to discuss ongoing challenges in Germany’s foreign policy as Olaf Scholz pursues the Zeitenwende – the reorientation of Berlin’s security agenda. Amidst intense public debates over the shipment of Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, how does Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s leadership reflect Germany’s attitudes towards European security? What signals is...

In December 2022, German authorities arrested dozens of people tied to an alleged right-wing extremist plot to overthrow the German government. Among the accused are a member of a former German noble family, a member of the German army’s elite force KSK, and a former member of the Bundestag from the far-right AfD party (who had worked as a federal judge). The alleged conspirators are tied to the Reichsbürger movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state and seeks to...

As 2022 draws to a close, AICGS President Jeff Rathke, AICGS Senior Fellow and Director of Society, Culture, and Politics Program Eric Langenbacher and AICGS Non-Resident Senior Fellow Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger take a look back at the most significant events of 2022 and their impact on German domestic as well as foreign and security policy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine introduced the “Zeitenwende,” – a reckoning of German politics with its foreign policy mistakes toward Russia, and a...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke sits down with Roderich Kiesewetter, ranking member of the CDU/CSU faction in the Foreign Relations Committee of the German Bundestag, to discuss the ongoing changes to Germany’s foreign and security policy, nine months after German chancellor Olaf Sholz declared the Zeitenwende. What support has Germany provided Ukraine to resist against Russian aggression? How should Germany reconceptualize its role in a changing Europe? Are...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke talks with participants in the AICGS project on social divisions in Germany and the United States, which recently visited Glendale, AZ. Melanie Mello, educational consultant and specialist for German; Rohat Akcakaya, master’s student in public policy at Peking University and the London School of Economics ; and Susanne Dieper, AICGS Director of Programs and Grants, share their impressions and findings. In Glendale, the participants...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke sits down with Johannes Vogel, Deputy Chairman of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the FDP’s Chief Whip in the German Bundestag, to discuss Germany’s policy toward China and Russia. Has Germany’s outlook of its relationship with China changed fundamentally, while Xi Jinping has secured an unprecedented third term as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government appears determined to expand China’s...

On this episode of the Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke, AICGS Senior Fellow and Director of Society, Culture, and Politics Program Eric Langenbacher and AICGS Non-Resident Senior Fellow Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger discuss the result of Lower Saxony’s Landestag election on October 9 and what it illustrates about national politics in Germany. What are the major issues shaping the country’s political dynamics? Has the SPD’s relative success in Lower Saxony removed concerns about the...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of the AICGS Geoeconomics Program, discuss the state of German-American economic relations and the countries’ shared global challenges with Karl Haeusgen, president of the VDMA (Mechanical Engineering Industry Association). Has the trade and economic relationship between Germany and the United States changed amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing strategic competition with China? With the rise of...

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a “Zeitenwende,” a historic turning point for Germany’s security and defense policy. Scholz pledged to set up an off-budget fund of €100 billion to invest in the modernization of the Bundeswehr and promised that Germany would reach NATO’s defense spending goal of 2 percent of GDP. Breaking with decades of tradition of not sending arms to conflict zones, the German government also has supplied weapons to...

On this episode of the podcast, AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of the AICGS Geoeconomics Program, discuss the ongoing challenges facing international trade, potential reforms to the existing international trading system, and the changing face of globalization with Andreas Freytag, Professor of Economics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Honorary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, and Rufus Yerxa, Senior Advisor at McLarty Associates and former...

On this episode of the podcast, AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of the AICGS Geoeconomics Program, discuss the challenges facing globalization and the evolving international trading system with Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Coordinator of the Jacques Delors Institutes. Is the world in an era of de-globalization or re-globalization? Has Europe’s willingness to open its economy to global trade in the post-Cold War era...

In a stark display of their economic power following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies deployed an array of sanctions aimed at curtailing Russia’s access to global financial markets and industrial supply chains. These unprecedented economic sanctions are intended to diminish the resources Russia has available to prosecute its war. While the moves have demonstrated a high degree of allied cooperation, they have also heightened debate about the relative...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke is joined by Alex Sängerlaub, the director and co-founder of futur eins in Berlin, and Rebekah Tromble, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at the George Washington University, as they discuss the spread of misinformation and disinformation in Germany and the United States. How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the spread of misinformation? Are Americans and Germans “media literate”...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke discusses the experience of managing the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons for public health policy in Germany and the United States with Arielle Kane, director of healthcare at the Progressive Policy Institute, and Philipp Heuermann, MPA candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. How has the public’s trust in government institutions and scientific expertise impacted both countries’ covid responses? Has the pandemic changed the...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke talks with participants in the AICGS project on social divisions in Germany and the United States, which recently visited Buffalo, NY. Deanna Troust, founder of 3 Stories Communications based in Washington, DC; Mohammad Khanjar, PR consultant at Scholz & Friends in Berlin, Germany; and Elizabeth Hotary, AICGS Program Officer, shared their impressions and findings. In Buffalo, the participants explored the experiences and...

While the U.S. and German governments successfully adopted expansionary fiscal policies to deal with massive economic disruptions brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic, they are now faced with new challenges as Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and China’s persistent pandemic measures have further disrupted global supply chains, driven up inflation, set off a race to secure alternative energy sources, and muddled the trajectory of climate policy on both sides of the Atlantic. On this episode of...

This month’s election in Germany’s largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, saw a resurgence of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), growing support for the Green Party, further decline of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and a slump for the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Just a week earlier in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the CDU scored a major victory and the Greens became the second largest party ahead of the SPD and the FDP, its coalition partners in the federal government led...

On this episode of the Podcast, AICGS President Jeff Rathke talks with participants in the AICGS project on social divisions in Germany and the United States, which recently visited the German city of Dortmund. Yasmin Al-Douri, MS candidate in politics & technology at the Technical University Munich and founder of Diverse Young Leaders, Venessa Simpson, linguist at Lidl U.S. and former Community Outreach Director for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in Fairfax, Virginia, and...

On this episode of The Zeitgeist, Daniel Gros, Member of the Board and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), joins AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of AICGS Geoeconomics Program. They discuss economic and strategic challenges that have arisen from an authoritarian and increasingly assertive China and responses from Europe and the United States. How do Europeans and Americans perceive China’s efforts to reshape the international economic...