Confirmed by the Senate
Gutmann becomes the first US ambassador to Berlin
2/9/2022 7:41 am
The position of US Ambassador to Berlin has been vacant for almost two years. Now the political scientist Amy Gutmann, nominated by Biden, takes over the position. The university president with German-Jewish roots wants to deepen the partnership between the states – but also has expectations of the federal government.
For Amy Gutmann it will be a very special and symbolic return to her roots. Her German-Jewish father, Kurt, fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and later emigrated from India to the United States. A good seven months after her nomination by President Joe Biden, the Senate has now confirmed the 72-year-old university president as the new US Ambassador to Germany. The renowned political scientist is the first woman ever to take on the post of US ambassador in Berlin. Before moving to Berlin, Gutman only has to be sworn in, which is considered a formality. She received 54 yes votes and 42 no votes in the Senate. Four senators did not vote.
The president of the elite University of Pennsylvania in the east coast metropolis of Philadelphia has repeatedly spoken about how the history of her father, who came from Feuchtwangen in Franconia, shaped her. The student had persuaded his four siblings and parents to flee Germany in view of the increasing persecution of Jews.
“It’s true that if he hadn’t done something, his whole family would have been swallowed up by the face of the earth,” Amy Gutmann told The Daily Pennsylvanian in 2013.
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gutmann said in December that her father “instilled” in her what it meant to “lead as an American”: “Never to forget and always against anti-Semitism, racism and all forms of bigotry and Stand up for discrimination, stand up for freedom and democracy, prosperity and the rule of law, national security and respect for the dignity of all.”
Politics professor taught at an elite university
Gutmann was born in Brooklyn, New York. She studied political science at Harvard and at the London School of Economics and had a brilliant academic career. She taught at the elite Princeton University for three decades before becoming President of the University of Pennsylvania – UPenn for short – in 2004, which, like Harvard and Princeton, belongs to the so-called Ivy League of prestigious universities in the north-east of the USA.
The politics professor has published on topics such as democratic theory, identity politics, political ethics, education and health care. In 2009, then-US President Barack Obama appointed her to chair a bioethics committee. In 2011, Newsweek magazine named her one of the “150 Women Making the World a Difference”. Fortune magazine named her one of the “50 Greatest Leaders in the World” in 2018.
Last July, President Biden Gutmann then nominated as ambassador to Germany. Instead of a quick move to Berlin, a stalemate followed: the opposition Republicans in the Senate blocked confirmation of Gutmann and other nominated ambassadors for months. The background was in particular the dispute over the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2, which is supposed to bring Russian gas to Germany.
Gutmann calls Nord Stream 2 “bad deal”
Biden is an opponent of the pipeline, which is once again the focus of attention in the current Ukraine crisis. However, he does not want to impose sanctions on the relationship with important ally Germany, which was shaken by his predecessor Donald Trump. Gutmann also criticized Nord Stream 2 at her Senate hearing: The pipeline was a “bad deal” for Germany and “terrible” for Ukraine.
At the same time, the ambassador-designate, who is married to political professor Michael Doyle, particularly emphasized the close partnership with Germany. She now wants to deepen this further from the US Embassy at the Brandenburg Gate. There it will fill a vacancy that has existed for more than a year and a half: the American representation at the Brandenburg Gate has not been led by an ambassador since June 2020 – longer than at any time since the Second World War. After the election of Donald Trump as US President, the United States was almost 16 months without an ambassador in Berlin until Richard Grenell took office in May 2018. Trump’s loyal henchman Grenell, who often made undiplomatic statements in Berlin and repeatedly snubbed the federal government, then returned to the United States after about two years. Since then, the diplomatic representation has been managed by charge d’affaires.
A different tone is likely to prevail with Gutmann than under Grenell, but the future ambassador should also make it clear what expectations the Biden government has. Among other things, she announced before the Senate that she wanted to call on the new federal government to achieve the NATO target of defense spending of two percent of gross domestic product.