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A NEWSLETTER FROM THE AMERI CAN ACADEMY I N BERLI N NUMBER THREE FALL 2001
IN THIS ISSUE
Benjamin Barber
Richard Freeman
Sander Gilman
Richard Holbrooke
Jane Kramer
Susan Sontag
T H E B E R L I N J O U R N A L
In this Issue
Honorary Chairmen
Thomas L. Farmer
Henry A. Kissinger
Richard von Weizscker
Chairman
Richard C. Holbrooke
Vice Chairman
Gahl Hodges Burt
President
Robert H. Mundheim
Treasurer
Karl M. von der Heyden
Trustees
Gahl Hodges Burt
Gerhard Casper
Lloyd Cutler
Jonathan F. Fanton
Thomas L. Farmer
Julie Finley
Vartan Gregorian
Jon Vanden Heuvel
Karl M. von der Heyden
Richard C. Holbrooke
Dieter von Holtzbrinck
Dietrich Hoppenstedt
Josef Joffe
Stephen M. Kellen
Henry Kissinger
Horst Khler
John C. Kornblum
Otto Graf Lambsdorff
Nina von Maltzahn
Klaus Mangold
Erich Marx
Wolfgang Mayrhuber
Robert H. Mundheim
Franz Xaver Ohnesorg
Robert Pozen
Volker Schlndorff
Fritz Stern
Kurt Viermetz
Alberto W. Vilar
Richard von Weizscker
Klaus Wowereit, ex officio
A Newsletter from the American Academy in Berlin
Published at the Hans Arnhold Center
Number Three Fall 2001
Edited by Gary Smith
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32
T H E B E R L I N J O U R N A L
s a guest of the American
Academy here this week, the
New York City schools chancellor,
Harold O. Levy, joins the ranks of
people like Arthur Miller and
Susan Sontag who have also been
lecturers at the Academy. During
his visit, Mr. Levy met privately
with the American and Israeli
ambassadors to Germany and vis-
ited schools. And at a news con-
ference, he prompted a stir by
describing the sheer size of the
New York school system. Eyes
widened as he cited the numbers:
800,000 meals a day, 80,000
teachers and 4,000 school buses.
The main theme of his visit,
however, has been immigration
and bilingual education, which he
discussed Tuesday night with
German legislators and educators.
School administrators here face
problems like those in New York
stemming from the need to teach
foreign students who do not
speak the dominant language.
The large immigrant population
here includes many Turks, and
officials are debating a major leg-
islative change to allow more
immigration.
In discussing the New York
bilingual program, Mr. Levy said:
If you look to how the immi-
grant is treated, it defines in great
part what the society is. It speaks
to who we are.
Mr. Levys parents fled Ger-
many during the Nazi regime. He
grew up in New York speaking a
mixture of languages including
Moseldeutsch, the dialect from his
parents childhood region and
took questions at his lecture in his
mothers tongue.
In a visit to a Berlin school, stu-
dents were less interested in New
York City schools than in the
effects of the Sept. 11 attacks.
One of them asked if we have to
meet violence with violence. I
responded with the question of
whether pacifism would have
been the right response to Hitler.
The students agreed that there
were times to take up arms.
Mr. Levy, who was invited two
years ago, considered canceling
after Sept. 11, but decided to go
through with the trip, he said,
after being deeply moved by the
Berlin Philharmonic's determina-
tion to carry on with a concert at
Carnegie Hall. I decided that in a
profound sense I had to come,
he said, in order not to be
deterred by terrorism.
The New York Times
November 8, 2001
To a Talmudist
for Daniel Boyarin
If, as you say, the Lord of all,
Himself, is at a loss
To understand his metaphors,
And if those long approximate
Disputes of ours
Have been stratagems
For taking, here and there, control
Surely it follows, either that it is time
For the old Fuddler to abdicate
(Which God forbid)
In favor of a She-Who-Knows,
Or that such sensitive aftergods
As played with fractions all along
Called it a day,
Said nothing, save in song?
Yet if all possible lands
To wander nimbly in are strange,
How much more strange it comes to us,
A song not his. No trees therein,
Only imaginary melodies
To hang our harping from.
In scores we of ourselves require
Contrapuntally, how might they number?
Still, some aspire, even if in labour
They listen to an absent
Oceans boom. Out of earshot
The whispering leaves
Can still instruct a few quaint
Other Daniels:
In mid-flight their cry
Mimics no fundament, from the inanimate
Up into the air, it compels
Four fresh springs to feed and quicken
The four old rivers of the night.
Christopher Middleton
The Immigrant
Harold Levy address Bilingual Education at the Academy
By Desmond Butler
A
require humanitarian aid. It is
quite a different situation, said
Lubbers. Refugees have a capacity
to work that could be very useful
to any country. Not all refugees
are Einsteins, but they can do
much to counter Europes low
birth rate, and they are more of
an enrichment than a burden.
Holbrooke, too, warned that
the refugee problem should not
be swept under the rug. The prob-
lem is far larger than most gov-
ernments want to admit. Nor is it
a temporary problem, said the
former US ambassador to Ger-
many. In the face of continuing
civil wars for example those in
Angola, the Republic of Congo,
and Sudan which produce three
quarters of the worlds refugee
population, the stream of refugees
will grow even larger in the com-
ing years. Refugees will domi-
nate the twenty-first century.
They will no longer disappear.
Berliner Morgenpost
September 9, 2001
ven a New Yorker i s struck by the raw, often
confusing, always impressive energy of the new Berlin.
Returning to the city this year to take up the Chairmanship
of the American Academy in Berlin, I am once again
struck by this. Yet, exciting as the capitals life may be, the past is a
relentless intruder, the engine that drives its current transformations.
To walk through Berlin is to enter a living version of a college survey
course of twentieth-century European history. One passes the parade
grounds where Kaiser Wilhelm II, on his horse (and hiding his withered
arm), reviewed the troops before World War I. The old Jewish quarter.
The plaza in which Nazi students built a bonfire of non German
books in 1933. The Pariser Platz, where
Hitler and Goebbels presided over
torchlight parades and, in 1945, Soviet
tanks smashed through the Brandenburg
Gate. Hitlers bunker. The ruins of the
Gestapo headquarters, saved from the
wreckers ball and turned into a small
museum, The Topography of Terror.
The huge air terminal at Tempelhof,
once Hitlers pride and later the indis-
pensable landing field through which
the 1948 Airlift saved the city.
No city on earth has gone on such a
roller-coaster ride in such a short span
of time. There were the decades before
Nazi rule: first, the years of pre-World
War I innocence; then the Weimar era
(still strangely innocent) immortalized
in I am a Camera and Cabaret. Then
there was Hitler and the Holocaust.
Berlin became the capital of Evil.
Yet less than three years after the
wars end, the citys Soviet liberators
by blockading it transformed it into
the ultimate symbol of the cold war, a
city of heroic, freedom-loving survivors.
Berlin went from villain to victim, from
horrors to heroics, almost overnight.
The decades that followed were high
theater, and Berlin was often at center
stage: the East German uprising of June
1953; JFKs speech; Checkpoint Charlie;
secret spy ex-changes; Reagans visit;
the night in November 1989 when the
wall came down; and, finally, in 1994 one last photograph for the his-
tory books the Clintons and the Kohls walking side by side through the
Brandenburg Gate into East Berlin, where they were greeted by an
crowd of more than one hundred thousand.
Berlin is a city that never is, but is always in the process of becom-
ing, observed the noted German essayist Karl Scheffler in 1910.
(He added, disapprovingly, that its people are lured by the promise
of Americanism.)
Ninety years later, Berlin is indeed becoming something new:
Europes greatest showcase for modern architecture although some
Berliners, fulfilling their reputation for cynicism, like to say that the
worlds best architects have come here to build their worst buildings.
But even here, everything seems reflected through the past. Sir Norman
Fosters transparent high-tech dome sits atop the battle-scarred
Reichstag and enables the visitor to literally (and symbolically) look
down upon the German Parliament that has recently taken up residence
there. Daniel Libeskinds architectural tour de force, the Jewish
Museum, bears within it an abiding reminder of the Holocausts ravages:
an unavoidable and impenetrable void at the buildings center. A visit
to the new home of the Ministry of Finance is especially bizarre, for it
is housed in Grings massive Air Ministry, which survived every Allied
attempt to destroy it during the war.
The battles over new and old architecture only underscore the
dilemmas faced by contemporary Berlin. Every decision of the plan-
ning authority, every new building or
monument, triggers an argument
based on conflicting views of history.
Should more of the Wall be preserved?
Should war ruins be razed and paved
over? How should the Holocaust be
memorialized? Is the chancellors new
office perhaps too grandiose that is, is
it too reminiscent of the quarters of a
certain earlier German leader?
The Germans, who gave the word
angst to the English language, worry con-
stantly about how to deal with the
heavy burden of their history. One of
my friends a prominent German
politician keeps in his study a portrait
of his grandfather, which clearly shows
his Nazi membership badge. I could
easily have had the badge painted over,
he told me, but I felt I had to leave it
in; for it is a historical truth. My grand-
father thought Hitler would be good
for Germany.
Berlin, Berlin, great city of misery,
wrote Heinrich Heine. In you there is
nothing to find but anguish and mar-
tyrdom. Heine was prophetic, but I
think Berlins years of excessive drama
have finally come to an end. It is no
longer a villain or a hero. Some Ber-
liners may miss the exciting days
when they were the center of the worlds
worried attention. Some may even miss
the wall, or at least some of the pro-
tection it afforded (and many still talk of a wall in the head that is,
of the different attitudes and expectations of Wessis and Ossis). But in
my view, this is not a time for nostalgia. Having worked closely with
many members of a new generation of Germans, I have more confi-
dence in them, perhaps, than they have yet to find in themselves.
With its overwhelming history Berlin will never be a normal city
even though it is no longer divided; even though American, British,
French and Soviet troops no longer face each other across a death
zone; even though American presidents no longer fly to Berlin to
reaffirm our commitment to freedom. But the ghosts will remain
forever. As they should.
This text is based on an article published in the September 10 edition of
Newsweek International.
By Richard C. Holbrooke
A M E R I C A N A C A D E M Y
E
BerlinViews
Funding the
American Academy
in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is unique
in Germany as a major academic and cultural
institution funded almost exclusively from pri-
vate sources. Many dedicated individuals and cor-
porations have contributed generously to build
the Academy and to ensure its ongoing opera-
tions and long-term viability.
The Academys founding gift came from
Stephen M. Kellen and the descendents of Hans
and Ludmilla Arnhold, the parents of Mr. Kellens
wife, Anna-Maria. Through their continued gen-
erosity, the Kellen and Arnhold families remain
principal benefactors of the Academy.
During its first three years, many corpora-
tions, foundations, and private individuals en-
abled the Academy to establish a strong pres-
ence in Berlin. Additionally, the City of Berlin has
made the Academys home, the Hans Arnhold
Center, available at a nominal rent.
Supporters of the Academy are growing in
number, amount, and types of contributions that
they provide. Through their personal involvement,
the American Academy in Berlin is able to en-
rich Berlins intellectual life. Likewise, the Aca-
demy can foster the American-German cultural and
academicexchangethat is at theheart of its mission.
$10,000,000 and above
Anna-Maria and Stephen M.
Kellen and the descendants of
Hans and Ludmilla Arnhold
$1,000,000 and above
DaimlerChrysler AG
European Recovery Program
Verlagsgruppe
Georg von Holtzbrinck
John W. Kluge Foundation
Alberto W. Vilar
$500,000 and above
Allianz AG
Henry Arnhold
Deutscher Sparkassen-
und Giroverband
General Motors
Adam Opel AG
Hauptstadtkulturfonds
Siemens AG
Southern Company
(Mirant Europe)
$250,000 and above
Robert Bosch Stiftung
Coca Cola Foundation
DaimlerChrysler Fonds
Deutsche Stiftung
Denkmalschutz
Lufthansa AG (in-kind)
Philip Morris GmbH
Xerox Foundation
$100,000 and above
Compaq GmbH (in-kind)
Credit Suisse First Boston
DaimlerChrysler Services AG
(in-kind)
Klaus Groenke
Intertec GmbH (in-kind)
Karl M. von der Heyden
Merrill Lynch
J. P. Morgan, Inc.
Morgan Stanley,
Dean Witter, Discover & Co
Open Society Institute
George Soros
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
(in-kind)
Sara Lee Corporation
Tishman Speyer Properties
$50,000 and above
Chase Manhattan Foundation
Dow Europe
Freshfields Bruckhaus
Deringer (in-kind)
Goldman, Sachs & Co
Richard C. Holbrooke
Shearman & Sterling (in-kind)
Kurt Viermetz
White & Case, Feddersen
(in-kind)
$10,000 and above
Bsendorfer Klavierfabrik
GmbH (in-kind)
Gahl Hodges Burt
CitiGroup
Deutsche Bahn AG
Deutsche Bank, N.A.
Julie Finley
Gillette Deutschland GmbH
Goldman Sachs
Guardian Industries
Corporation
Hans-Michael und
Almut Giesen
IBM Berlin (in-kind)
Kissinger Foundation
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen
und Halbach Stiftung
Estee Lauder
Philanthropic Fund
Jerome and Kenneth Lipper
Foundation
Robert H. and
Guna Mundheim
Payne, Forrester & Olsson
(in-kind)
Dale L. Ponikvar
Annette and
Heinrich von Rantzau
David Rockefeller
Schering AG
Robert A. Towbin
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
WMP AG (in-kind)
Major Gifts and Pledges