Top personnel confirmed
Your posting is a first: This is Amy Gutmann, the new US ambassador in Berlin
Amy Gutmann, political scientist, president of the University of Pennsylvania – and new US ambassador in Berlin
© Ed Hille/TNS via ZUMA Wire / DPA
After almost two years, the top position at the US Embassy in Germany has been filled again. The political scientist and university manager Ami Gutmann, nominated by Joe Biden, has German-Jewish roots – but no experience as a diplomat. Your appointment means a first.
The American university president Amy Gutmann will take over the post of US ambassador to Germany. A first, because she is the first woman to hold the top diplomatic post. With the approval of the Senate in Washington, the 72-year-old candidate of President Joe Biden cleared the last political hurdle on Tuesday. Before moving to Berlin, the award-winning political scientist with German-Jewish roots only has to be sworn in, which is considered a formality.
Gutmann has been President of the renowned Pennsylvania University since 2004. She received 54 yes votes and 42 no votes in the Senate. Four senators did not vote.
Successor to a Trump henchman
Since June 2020, the American representation at the Brandenburg Gate has not been headed by an ambassador – 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.
It is unclear when exactly Gutmann will start her service in Berlin. Her term as university president would not normally end until June, and her successor should begin in July.
Democrat Biden had already nominated Gutmann in July last year. Due to a blockade by the Republicans, the personnel initially silted up in the Senate. The Democrats have 50 of the 100 votes there. However, it usually takes 60 votes to bring about a vote, which is why Republicans can hold up Biden’s nominations.
Amy Gutmann has reputation but no diplomatic experience
Gutmann’s father came from Feuchtwangen in Bavaria and fled to India with his family after the Nazis took power in Germany in 1934. He later moved to New York, where Amy Gutmann was born in 1949 in the borough of Brooklyn.
She later studied political science at the elite university Harvard and taught at another top university, Princeton in New Jersey, for almost three decades before moving to Pennsylvania.
The university president has no diplomatic experience. As a scientist, she has received numerous awards. In 2011, Newsweek magazine named her one of the “150 Women Making the World a Difference”. Fortune magazine ranked her as one of the 50 most important leaders in the world in 2018.