The US Embassy in Germany will be headed by a woman for the first time, DPA reports. President of the University of Pennsylvania 72-year-old Amy Gutman.
Her candidacy, proposed by President Joseph Biden, was approved by a majority vote of the US Senate on Tuesday. Before leaving for a new job in Berlin, Gutman must go through a formal swearing-in procedure.
Gutmann is the daughter of Kurt Gutmann, a German Jew who in 1934, as a student, emigrated from persecution from Nazi Germany, first to India, where after graduation he worked on the construction of a metallurgical plant. He lived there until 1948, when, during a trip to the United States, he did not meet his future wife, Beatrice, and moved to America. Their daughter Amy was born the following year.
At a Senate International Committee hearing in December, she said that she did not forget her father's instructions and steadily followed them: "Always speak out against anti-Semitism, racism and any form of bigotry and discrimination," and also "for freedom and democracy, prosperity and the rule of law, national security and respect for the dignity of all."
Of course, Biden did not just propose the candidacy of Gutman. In the circles of the Democratic Party, she won serious prestige. And as a successful leader of the University of Pennsylvania, where the current head of state often lectured. And as a person of state thinking, when she worked for Barack Obama in the White House at the head of one of the commissions.
Amy Gutman is not a classic diplomat. But, according to the Welt newspaper, she knows Germany well and will certainly be able to become a reliable intermediary between Washington and Berlin.
By the way
Since June 2020, the US diplomatic mission at the Brandenburg Gate has been working essentially without a leader. After Trump came to the White House, the embassy was left without an owner for 16 months. Appointed to this position in 2018, Richard Grenell did not work in Berlin even for two years, frankly not getting along with the leadership of F. Since then, the ambassador's office has been empty. Waiting for Amy Gutman.
bbabo.Net