Berlin – A woman. The first woman to be sent to the Federal Republic as a US ambassador. That would be something else. Unlike the many men before her in this position, but perhaps also and above all than the last US ambassador to Berlin: the controversial Richard Grenell, who left Berlin last year and had previously repeatedly offended with his confrontational demeanor .
But there is of course a lot more to say about Amy Gutmann, who is apparently the next US ambassador to Berlin. US President Joe Biden will propose Amy Gutmann for the Berlin post. This is what Der Spiegel reported, citing German and American government circles. The person is now with the Federal President. In addition, Gutmann would have to be confirmed by the US Senate.
Amy Gutmann is 71 years old, a political scientist and has been the president of the private university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 2004. The university is considered to be one of the best universities in the country.
Anyone who deals a little with Amy Gutmann also immediately comes across a reference to her father. Kurt Gutmann (1910–1964) was Jewish. He came from a family of merchants in Feuchtwangen, Franconia, and fled the Nazis from Germany to India in 1934. He later went to New York. Her father had a profound influence on her as a role model for courage and integrity. Gutmann praised her father’s farsightedness, who acted out of hunch and persuaded his entire family to move out of Nazi Germany.
Her mother, Abigail Gutmann Doyle, was a professor of chemistry at Princeton University.
Amy Gutmann is married to the political scientist Michael W. Doyle and has a daughter with him. She studied in Cambridge, Massachusetts and received her PhD from Harvard University. She did research on democracy theory at Princeton. Gutmann became known when she campaigned for affordable education.
In Berlin, their main task will be to improve relations between Washington and Berlin, which had deteriorated rapidly during the reign of Donald Trump.
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