Language of Remembrance
Over the last few years, American society has been entrenched in a debate about how to remember the past. Demonstrations calling for the removal of Confederate statues and the backlash …
On the Possibilities and Pitfalls of German Holocaust Memory Today
In the past week, we marked the eightieth anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi bureaucrats coordinated the murder of millions of European Jews in a beautiful villa outside …
What is Angela Merkel’s Legacy for German Memory Culture?
AICGS Asks: How has Angela Merkel contributed to Germany’s culture of remembrance and influenced memory politics? Lily Gardner Feldman AICGS Senior Fellow All German post-war chancellors have been committed to …
Alliance Relations and Berlin
Berlin posed the worst kind of alliance problem. Lying 100 miles inside East German territory, surrounded by 124 Soviet and East German divisions, Berlin was indefensible by the West. General …
The Berlin Wall
Sixty Years Since its Construction Sixty years ago on August 13, East German leader Walter Ulbricht tried to save his regime by closing off the escape route to West Berlin. …
Recent Authors
Support the insights you need into the German-American relationship.
Support Our Work
President Biden’s Recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide
Will the German Government Follow? On April 24, 2021, President Joe Biden recognized as a genocide the mass killings by the crumbling Ottoman Empire of 1.5 million Armenians, beginning in …
The Diplomacy of Genocide
President Biden’s Recognition of the Armenian Genocide On the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, April 24, 2021, President Biden issued a statement honoring the memory of Armenians who perished. …
Episode 25: Defeat or Liberation: The Changing Interpretations of May 8
May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. While the displays of remembrance differed from the past given presence of the coronavirus, it …
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 …
The 100th Anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles
Among the many important dates that we largely overlooked is the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended the state of war between Germany and the …
The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany
More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down Al-Qaeda …
The Fall of the Wall as a Memory of Joy
Few countries have had to grapple with such a complex historical legacy as Germany. Among the many challenging issues arising from this past has the been the dynamic between appropriately …
Episode 12: Memorializing Afghanistan: German and American Experiences
The United States, along with Germany and many U.S. allies, have been at war in Afghanistan for 18 years. It is the longest-running military operation in either country’s history and …
Marking the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighborhood and Friendly Cooperation
On June 17, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty vowing to be good neighbors: to respect national boundaries and to contribute to …
