The American university president Amy Gutmann will be the first woman to take over the post of US ambassador to Germany. With the approval of the Senate in Washington, the 72-year-old candidate of President Joe Biden cleared the last political hurdle.
Before moving to Berlin, the award-winning political scientist with German roots only has to be sworn in, which is considered a formality. Gutmann has been President of the prestigious Pennsylvania University, a $3.5 billion university with 18,000 employees, since 2004. She received 54 yes votes and 42 no votes in the Senate. Four senators did not vote.
Since June 2020, the American representation at the Brandenburg Gate has not been led 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, returned to the United States after about two years. Since then, the diplomatic representation has been managed by charge d’affaires.
It was initially unclear when exactly Gutmann should 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.
Gutmann’s German father fled from the Nazis
Gutmann has Jewish roots in Germany. Her father came from Feuchtwangen in Bavaria and fled to India with his family after the National Socialists 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.