Confirmed by the Senate
Gutmann becomes first U.S. ambassador to Berlin
02/09/2022, 07:41 PM
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The position of U.S. ambassador to Berlin has remained vacant for almost two years. Now 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 German government.
For Amy Gutmann, it will be a very special and symbolic return to her roots. Her German-Jewish father Kurt had fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and later emigrated to the U.S. from India. 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 U.S. ambassador to Germany. The renowned political scientist is thus the first woman ever to assume the U.S. ambassadorial post in Berlin. Before her move to Berlin, Gutman only needs to be sworn in, which is considered a formality. In the Senate, she received 54 votes in favor and 42 against. Four senators did not vote.
The president of the elite University of Pennsylvania in the East Coast metropolis of Philadelphia has spoken repeatedly about how the story of her father, who came from the Franconian town of Feuchtwangen, shaped her. The student had persuaded his four siblings and parents to flee Germany in the face of increasing persecution of Jews.
“It’s true that his whole family would have been wiped off the face of the earth if he hadn’t done something,” Amy Gutmann told The Daily Pennsylvanian in 2013.
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December, Gutmann said her father “instilled in her” what it meant to “lead as an American”: to “never forget and to always stand against anti-Semitism, racism, and all forms of bigotry and discrimination, to 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 elite university
Gutmann was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York. She studied political science at Harvard and the London School of Economics and went on to a distinguished academic career. For three decades, she taught at the elite University of Princeton before becoming president in 2004 of the University of Pennsylvania – UPenn for short – which, like Harvard and Princeton, belongs to the so-called Ivy League of prestigious universities in the northeastern United States.
The politics professor has published on topics such as democratic theory, identity politics, political ethics, education and health care. In 2009, then-U.S. President Barack Obama appointed her to chair a bioethics commission. In 2011, Newsweek magazine named her one of the “150 Women Who Move the World.” In 2018, Fortune magazine named her one of the “50 Greatest Leaders in the World.
Then, last July, President Biden nominated Gutmann to be ambassador to Germany. Instead of a swift move to Berlin, a stalemate ensued: opposition Republicans in the Senate blocked confirmation of Gutmann and other ambassadorial nominees for months. The background to this was in particular the dispute over the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, which is to bring Russian gas to Germany.
Gutmann calls Nord Stream 2 “bad deal”
Biden may be an opponent of the pipeline, which is once again at the center of attention in the current Ukraine crisis. But he does not want to put renewed strain on the relationship with key ally Germany, which was shaken under his predecessor Donald Trump, by imposing sanctions. Gutmann also criticized Nord Stream 2 at her Senate hearing, saying the pipeline is a “bad deal” for Germany and “terrible” for Ukraine.
At the same time, the ambassador-designate, who is married to politics professor Michael Doyle, particularly emphasized the close partnership with Germany. She now wants to further deepen this from the U.S. Embassy located at the Brandenburg Gate. There, she will fill a void that has existed for more than a year and a half: Already since June 2020, the U.S. representation at the Brandenburg Gate has not been led by an ambassador – longer than at any time since World War II. After Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president, the U.S. was without an ambassador in Berlin for nearly 16 months until Richard Grenell took over in May 2018. Trump’s loyal henchman Grenell, who often offended with undiplomatic remarks in Berlin and snubbed the German government on several occasions, then returned to the U.S. after about two years. Since then, the diplomatic mission has been headed by chargés d’affaires.
While Gutmann is likely to set a different tone than under Grenell, the incoming ambassador is also likely to make clear what the Biden administration’s expectations are. Among other things, she announced before the Senate that she would call on the new federal government to achieve the NATO goal of defense spending equivalent to two percent of gross domestic product.
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