AGI

Society, Culture & Politics

The AGI Society, Culture & Politics Program focuses on crucial topics within the German-American dialogue, including: demographic change, migration/integration, and aging societies; electoral politics at the national, state, and European levels, and comparative analysis of Germany and the United States; diversity within Germany, Europe, and the United States; the politics of collective memory and identity, Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation, and shifting conceptions of national identity that shape perspectives and policy responses.
Reset

Episode 18: Hamburg as Barometer: What’s Happening in German Politics

On Sunday, Hamburg voters went to the polls for what is the only (scheduled) regional election in Germany this year. Recent regional elections have served as a barometer for the …

Choosing A Chancellor: from Bavaria to Berlin?

The abrupt departure of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK) from the race to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor leaves several potential CDU candidates vying for the opportunity. The immediate focus has been …

AGI is now accepting applications for its project “Social Divisions and Questions of Identity in Germany and the United States”

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, dates for the second year of the AGI project “Social Divisions in Germany and the U.S.” have shifted. The program will now take place …

Merkel’s failed succession plan sets Germany adrift in 2020 and beyond

A tremor shook German politics on Monday, with effects that will reach well beyond the country’s borders. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s presumptive heir, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, announced that she would step down from the …

AGI is now accepting applications for the DAAD/AGI Research Fellowship Program in 2020.

Apply by 15 March 2020 for the DAAD/AGI Research Fellowship Program. The fellowship, funded by a generous grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), is designed to bring both senior and junior scholars and specialists working …

The Fall of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer

Earlier today, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK) announced that she will not be the chancellor candidate in the regularly scheduled Bundestag election in fall 2021 and that she is stepping down as …

The New German Math

The chaos in Thuringia is another sign that the German party system is fragmenting, with dangerous consequences both for Germany and for its role in Europe. The new German political …

Auschwitz is a Warning: Comments on the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Red Army at Auschwitz-Birkenau

I want to discuss three points regarding Auschwitz and Holocaust Memory Today. First, despite a massive scholarship on the subject, knowledge in the public and in the world of policy …

Auschwitz: History and Icon

Auschwitz has become an icon of other-worldly evil, rightly signifying a crime like no other. That monstrous camp of gas chambers and crematoria, however, is also a distinctly human creation …

The Federal Republic’s Political and Societal Responses to Auschwitz

To stand here today and address you as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany is far from easy. I am filled with a deep shame at the barbaric crimes …

Keeping History Alive: 75 Years after the Liberation of Auschwitz

One of the negative icons of the twentieth century was the Holocaust—the Nazi German persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jewish people in Europe during World War II from …